And it hurt. It hurt so much that sometimes, like this morning, I tried to avoid the pain. I avoided it by oversleeping by nine minutes and escaping yet another homework battle. But then Tuli had stormed into my room, still in pajamas — even though I’d laid out his clothing the night before, at 1:50 a.m., mind you — clutching tissues to his face and screaming hysterically. Nosebleed. Hurray.

“Tilt your head back,” I’d ordered. “Here, I’ll press on top, relax, it’s going to stop in a minute.”

He hadn’t relaxed and had tilted his head forward, thrashing and punching my hands away from him. I swallowed with revulsion as my gaze followed the trail of blood on the floor. “Back,” I hissed. “You’re making it worse. Please, Tuli, it’s late.”

He’d continued thrashing, and before I could nail him down and get the bleeding to stop, Shuey ran into my room, two lollypops and a pacifier in his mouth, and it took me six seconds to notice: He was wet. Again.

There went my morning coffee. Bathe, strip linen, dress, feed, OUT.

Then, as I was dropping Shuey off at playgroup, my mother had called. She had this brainstorm. For her new baby, that Kallateinu organization she’d started — my shvigger’s midlife crisis, Dovid told everyone — she needed to fundraise. “I decided to do this the real way. A party, in a hall. That’s how you raise real money these days. It’s such an important cause. There are hundreds of kallahs from troubled homes who need our help, but we need serious funding. But I have no idea how to plan events, I’m terrible with décor stuff. And you’re so creative, I’m going to need your help with this. Maybe you could come over here after work?”

Uh, sure, after work. I’ll make arrangements…?

I’d made a quick stop in the supermarket after carpool and flew back home to throw in supper before heading to work. No coffee, no cleanup, definitely no makeup.

And here was event planner Vivian Graus, noticeably bronzed, sympathetically clucking her tongue over my rough morning.

I took out a clean sheet of paper and smoothed it on the counter purposefully. “So what are we working on today?”

“The Anshei Torah dinner,” Vivian said. “October 25.”

I scribbled the info on top of the page. “Venue?”

“The Bayside Re— you really don’t look good, Raizy. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I wanted to hurl my pen in her face, but when I looked in her eyes, behind the heavy makeup, I caught a flicker of something. Something… real. Human. Honest. The woman was really concerned, and suddenly, I didn’t hate her so much anymore.

I dropped my pen on the counter and looked up. “Honestly, Vivian? I’m not so okay. There’s a lot going on in my life right now. I guess it’s all a bit… overwhelming.”

She clucked her tongue again, and somehow, I didn’t mind. It fueled me to continue. “Not a huge crisis or anything, it’s just…” I bit back the word Leila. “Stuff,” I said instead. “Small stuff, you know, but a bunch of those, and they all add up, and it’s hard to stay on top of everything always. I don’t — I mean, I’m up for hours and I still didn’t have a coffee.”

Vivian’s face contorted in pity. I shuffled in place, completely mortified. “Never mind,” I muttered. “The Bayside, you were saying. And end of October, we could still do an autumn theme then.”

Vivian snatched the paper off the counter and ripped it in half. “Listen to me, Raizy, and listen well. Take it from someone who knows. You have a problem, a big one, and there’s only one solution.”

She crumpled the papers in her hand and tossed them in the air. “Self-care,” she declared.

“Self-care,” I echoed. Then I withdrew a fresh sheet of paper and smoothed it down on the counter.

  

Self-care.

The word rang in my ears for the rest of the day, as I helped customers decide between hydrangeas and peonies.

During my lunch break, while nibbling some saltines I found in my drawer, I googled the word. Self-care.

Self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you. Katie Reed

Neat assonance, Katie.

Alexandra Elle had further wisdom to impart. You owe yourself the love that you freely give to others.

And of course, Norm Kelly’s famous brilliance. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

I shoved the cracker box away and stood up. They were right. Reed and Elle and Kelly, and of course, Vivian Graus. These weren’t platitudes. They were simply saying the truth. You really couldn’t pour from an empty cup. And my cup was — quite literally, I realized, mourning my missed coffee — empty.

I was depleted, and I wasn’t the only one suffering for it. Because if I took a moment to be honest with myself, it wasn’t only my mornings that were rough. Afternoons were just as rough, if not rougher, as I did, did, did, did, did, did. I did for my husband, did for my kids, did for my mother. I did for everyone — except for myself. And as a result, although supper was on the table on time, and everyone always had clean clothes to wear, and homework — oy, homework — got done, too, they all suffered. They suffered from my tension, from my short fuse, from the obvious lack of happiness in our home.

It was so obvious, I didn’t know why I needed Vivian Graus to bring it to my attention.

I eyed the crackers with disgust. Saltines were not lunch. They would still my hunger for an hour, then I’d hunt for other stuff to nibble on throughout the rest of the day, until I got home, ravenous, and I’d tell myself I’d have a salad, soon, after homework, after the kids ate, after baths, after they were all in bed. In between, I’d serve Dovid supper, thinking I’ll join him, but then my mother would call and ask if I could please put together a nice arrangement for the Richters, they were making an aufruf this Shabbos, and—

Wait. I’d promised my mother I’d come over after work to help her plan her Kallateinu party. I wouldn’t even be around to do all those things. And I hadn’t made arrangements for the kids yet.

This, my brain hissed, is crazy.

And I knew, with startling clarity, that it was time to heed Katie Reed’s advice.

  

“Hmm, I really wanted to get the ball rolling,” my mother said. “I booked a hall, I have to get cracking on the plans.”

“It won’t work,” I told her resolutely. “I can’t make arrangements for the kids.”

“I understand,” she said. “Another day, I guess.”

Her voice was filled with disappointment. Guilt crept up my throat.

I swallowed. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” I mumbled. Then I hung up, quickly, before my resolve crumbled.

I had ten minutes left to my break. I usually spent the time straightening up the showroom and double-checking that all orders were going out on schedule. Which was ridiculous, I realized, because it meant I was working straight through my break, day in and day out.

Self-care, Vivian’s voice whispered.

I stood up and grabbed my jacket. “I’ll be back in a few,” I called out to my boss.

There was a café a block away from the florist. I passed it every day, sniffed longingly, and walked right past it.

Not today.

Today, I pulled the door open, entered and walked over to the counter to pick up a menu.

If only Vivian was there to see me.

  

I hated when Amazon orders arrived in multiple packages. Of course, the thing you needed most always arrived last. But rummaging through this box now, it looked like everything had arrived in one box. Yoga ball, mat, air pump. I was all set for class. Yay.

“Who had a baby?” Dovid asked suddenly. He was sitting with his tablet on the couch, munching popcorn.

I ripped open the packaging on the ball. “Who had a baby?” I threw back at him.

“I see a charge from Black Mug, isn’t that the place you always order lunch for kimpeturins?”

“That’s…”

“Wait, I see a few Black Mug charges.” He frowned. “A bunch of babies this month?”

“That’s not for babies,” I said.

“But?”

“It’s just lunch.”

“For who?”

“For me, how about?”

His fistful of popcorn paused on the way to his mouth. “Uh… Oh. Sure, okay, whatever.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

He stuffed the popcorn into his mouth. “Did I say I have a problem?”

“You—”

He nothing. All he’d done was review his credit card statement. Why did I feel so attacked?

Why? I knew very well why. I was suddenly spending an hour’s salary every day on food. For myself. For one meal. While Dovid walked around with a chronic mortgage-tuition-bills-bills-bills headache and ate cereal and milk at his desk. He had every reason to attack me.

I squeezed the pump in my hand. “Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.”

“What?”

“Christopher Germer. He said that.”

“Christopher—?”

“Yup.”

Dovid’s brows rounded. I tried looking smug, but I didn’t feel smug, so I probably ended up looking plain weird.

I shook out the yoga ball and flattened it on the table. My cellphone gave three pronounced beeps. I reached for it — a reminder: Call Yaffa.

Grr. Yaffa Hammer, Leila’s new tutor. Wet behind the ears, convinced she could turn Leila into J.K. Rowling, “she has such potential, wow.”

Angrily, I hit dismiss on my phone. Then I stuck the ball pump into the air valve and got to work.

  

I didn’t hate Naomi because she had more money or fame or luck. I hated her because she didn’t — and still always looked great.

“You’re going to love it,” Naomi babbled as we circled the block looking for parking. “It’s crazy relaxing, you unplug completely.”

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. Anne Lamott, if I remembered correctly. I clutched the yoga mat on my lap.

I’d made the mistake of joking to Naomi that I was joining her self-care craze, and my friend had latched onto my words. “Your life will be transformed, you’ll see. With the lives we lead, if we want to stay sane, it’s the only solution.”

Where had I heard those wise words before?

“I’m signing you up to my yoga class,” Naomi had declared. And she did, and she made me order yoga equipment, and I did, and here we were, pulling into a parking spot, on my way to always looking great.

My cellphone rang. Home.

I took a deep breath. “Yes, Shaindy, what’s up?”

“Leila refuses to do her homework.”

Leila and homework in the same sentence, ouch. What had I thought? That Leila would cooperate with her 14-year-old sister better than with her mother?

I glanced at Naomi. She would kill me, but I had to go home. Leila needed me. Morah Parnes had arranged a modified test for her, it was my responsibility to prepare her for it.

But apparently my phone volume was very loud, and Naomi was already shaking her head. “Nope,” she said. “No, no, no. See, this is where you go wrong, Raizy. Do you really think it’s going to help if you spend your night studying with her? She’ll maybe score a few points higher, but it’s not going to help her in the long run. She’s going to sense your tension and the pressure will crush her. Believe me, you’re doing your daughter a much greater favor by participating in this yoga class. A calm mother tomorrow morning will take her a lot further than this dreaded homework.”

Five minutes later, as I got down on my yoga mat, the soft bars of music grated on my ears and the scent of lavender made me gag.

  

I was going to the beach, the mall, and the spa.

Oh, the places I’ll go. I would go, and my mother’s party would plan itself, Shuey would stop bedwetting, Mary Poppins would show up and transform my life.

And of course, Leila would learn to read.

The solution to all my problems. Of course I’d go. As soon as the baby stopped crying. And I stripped Shuey’s linen. And washed it. And put up supper. And fed the baby. And went to work. And returned from work. And fed the baby. And threw in a load. And served supper. And transferred the load. And did homework. (And didn’t do homework.) And bathed the kids. And made Shuey’s bed. And put the kids to sleep. And served Dovid supper. And cleaned up the house. And made a grocery order. And returned Yaffa’s phone call. And ran to the Braun wedding. And to the Lipshitz vort. And threw in another load. And folded the first load. And set out the kids’ clothing for the next day.

Of course I’d go. To bed. Still holding the screaming baby, who wouldn’t stop crying, ever.

Self-care, right. I’d never hated anyone in my life as much as I hated my friend Naomi just then.

And then, like she was psychic or something, Naomi texted me. Fwd, fwd, fwd, fwd: The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. Sydney J. Harris

I dropped my phone on my night table with serious umbrage. Did Naomi really expect me to stay in bed when the kids had to be out of the house in 20 minutes and were all still in pajamas?

She always did this to me. “You must go on vacation with your husband,” she would yell at me. “You must. It’s so healthy, you have to get away from everyone and everything for a few days.”

I loved when she was realistic like that. “And you’re offering to take all my kids when I go away, right?” I’d retort every time.

But suddenly, I cut the miserable train of thoughts short and sat up straight. Forget Vivian with her Moschino breath. I didn’t know her and had no idea what kind of life she led. But Naomi — she was my best friend, and she was in the exact same boat as me. She had a bunch of little kids and a bunch of small and big challenges. She wasn’t rolling in dough, and she wasn’t exceptionally famous or talented. She was trying to tell me something, and maybe it was finally time to listen.

Tentatively, I reached for my phone again. I scrolled down my contacts to the letter S. Sophia, my cleaning help. Are you available tomorrow?

  

Guilt had this habit of sneaking up on you and making you second-guess every decision you made.

But at the same time, knowledge was power, and knowing the nature of guilt empowered me. I wasn’t going to let guilt stand in the way of doing what I knew was the right thing to do.

Bottom line, I was not going to feel guilty about serving frozen pizza for supper.

Frozen pizza was right on so many levels. It relieved stress from my morning routine. It relieved stress from my afternoon routine. It relieved stress from my evening routine. And nobody protested. So there.

With supper crossed off my list, I had the luxury of applying makeup before going to work. On my way to looking great, always, I silently hummed as I buzzed Sophia in.

Work was chaos. Wedding season at the florist was always chaotic, but today, customers trailed through the door in droves, the phone didn’t stop ringing, and Pedro seemed to be making ridiculous mistakes on purpose.

When I finally returned home, my head was exploding and the thought of dealing with my kids made me dizzy.

But then I remembered. Frozen pizza. And — as I opened the door — Sophia.

Ahhh. The house was immaculate. All the laundry was washed, pressed, folded and distributed, the beds were made, and she’d even managed to wash the dining room windows, I noticed.

I broke out in a smile. I could get used to this.

And then I made a split-second decision. Sticking a yogurt and banana into Sophia’s hands, I asked her, “Can you come again tomorrow?”

  

The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others. Chuang Tzu

“Frozen pizza again?” Shaindy asked, 15 seconds after she walked through the door.

I looked up from Naomi’s text. “Yup.”

“But we had that twice last week, and again on Monday.”

“I thought you loved pizza?”

“I do, but…”

“Well, then, enjoy it. It’ll be ready in three minutes.”

She gave me a weird look and left the kitchen. The phone rang; it was my sister Zissi. “Kallateinu,” she said, “is the best thing since cut bread.”

“Sliced.”

“Whatever. It’s a total miracle. I feel like Mommy dropped ten years since she got this party idea into her head. Empty-nesting was a disaster for her, and now she’s feeling all important, busy as a peacock—”

“Proud as a peacock or busy as a bee. Make up your mind, Zissi.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I feel like we need to show her how excited we are about this. I had this idea, if she’s doing a party, there should be a journal, right? I could get her great prices on printing, obviously, through Tuli’s company. What do you think?”

The party. My mother had texted me about it in the morning, but I’d never responded. “Um, does anyone even read those journals?”

“Ads bring in tons of money,” Zissi said, “but that’s not the point. Point is it’s going to make Mommy feel amazing. She’ll be so proud.”

She was right, and for some reason, it made me mad.

“Yeah, I guess,” I mumbled. “Good idea. Um, this place is flying and the kids need me here. Gotta go. We’ll talk.”

I hung up the phone and looked around at my quiet, gleaming kitchen. I sniffed the pizza in the oven.

We need to show her how excited we are about this.

I caught myself quickly. This — these ugly feelings — this was guilt all over again, making a ruckus in my ears. I couldn’t be more involved in my mother’s project now, and I shouldn’t be eating myself up over it. This was where I always went wrong, this was my whole problem, I had to learn to let go, I was learning, practicing. I was—

Leila stormed into the kitchen. She didn’t comment on the supper menu. Instead, she threw her knapsack down on the kitchen floor and stamped her feet in fury. “I’m not doing homework!”

“Okay,” I said sharply.

“I mean it! I’m not! I hate homework! I hate school! Reading is stupid. Everything is stupid!”

“Okay,” I repeated. “I said you don’t have to.”

Leila stared. “I don’t have to do my homework?”

“Nope.”

She looked bewildered. “Uh, great. Kay, I’m not!” Then she frowned. “Hey, but will you take a sticker off my chart?”

I shook my head. “I won’t. And Leila, I’m going to take a nap now. Tell the kids that if they’re quiet, they’ll all get noodle soup when I wake up.”

“Me too?”

“You too.”

As I locked the door of my bedroom, I thought I heard a fight break out somewhere down the hallway. Quickly, I turned on my noise machine, cranked the volume to the loudest, closed the blinds and climbed into bed.

The perfect man of old…

It felt amazing. Absolutely amazing.

It was the best feeling in the world.

Really.

  

“So I did notice that some of my white hairs turned black.”

Naomi giggled and took a sip of mint lemonade.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” I said. “Yoga and everything is nice, but what I’m really enjoying is the mental shift. Like I took this random personal day to go to the mall with you, I bought myself a new dress, I’m eating an $18 grilled salmon salad, and I don’t even feel guilty about it. I know I was always cynical about this whole self-care movement, but I have to admit, it’s having a positive effect on my life. I feel so much better these days, taking care of my needs.”

“Of course. Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners. And that’s straight Shakespeare.”

I stole a noodle from Naomi’s plate. “But honestly, honestly?” I said. “It should be a halachah in the Torah that every family must have full-time cleaning help. I never realized how much of my life is wasted cleaning bathrooms and folding laundry. And the entire family benefits. Not only from the clean house, which means instant yishuv hadaas, but from me simply being more available. And okay, I confess, yelling a lot less. Because a mess that Sophia will clean up is a lot less frazzling than a mess I’ll need to clean up on my own, at one o’clock in the morning with a screaming baby in my hands. I’m telling you, that woman is worth every penny.”

“Exactly!” Naomi exclaimed. “See! Now give me my moment to bask and say I told you so.”

“On the mark, get set…”

“I. Told. You. So!”

We giggled and I raised my iced coffee for a toast.

The rest of the afternoon was sheer bliss. We went for mani-pedis, then brisk-walked on the boardwalk for 45 minutes. No sunbathing in October, but hey, Vivian, I did the beach, the mall, and the spa in one day.

By the time I arrived at the babysitter to pick up Shmuli, I was exhausted, but it was a delightful kind of exhaustion. Joyous, satisfied. Plain good.

“He had a very long nap in the morning, and he’s been cranky since he woke up,” the babysitter reported. “He refused his bottle. I think he’s not feeling well.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did, it went straight to voicemail.”

Voicemail? Right, of course. Naomi had ordered me to turn my phone off. “Take it from Beau Taplin,” she’d said. “Self-love is an ocean and your heart is a vessel. Make it full, and any excess will spill over into the lives of the people you hold dear. But you must come first.”

Mani-pedis, while Shmuli hollered.

I scooped up the baby. “Oy, my tzaddik,” I crooned. I brought his cheek to my face — and recoiled.

The child was burning with fever.

“Oh no,” I groaned. Pediatrician, now? I’d been out of the house since the morning, I did not have energy for this.

And then it dawned on me: I did not have to do it. I had a husband; Dovid was perfectly capable of taking a baby to the doctor. Naomi was always telling me about being a surrendered wife, trusting your husband and everything. Dovid was Shmuli’s parent just like I was.

I got into the car and reached for my phone.

“I can’t, Raizy,” Dovid said. “I’m bombed. I had a crazy day in the office, I’m going on a granola bar that I had at 12, I have a splitting headache. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“But he has fever!”

“Why can’t you take him?”

“’Cuz I’m bombed, too!”

He was quiet for a moment. “Didn’t you take the day off today?”

I sucked in my breath. The nerve. The utter nerve. I take one measly day off from work, couldn’t he fargin me that? After twisting myself in a pretzel for the family all the time? What was I asking for already — one simple trip to the doctor.

“Fine,” I said bitterly. “Fine, I’ll go. I’ll do it, like I do everything always. Go take a salt bath because you’re so bombed.”

I heard him inhale sharply. Ugh, why did I just do that? That was disgusting. “I’m sorry, Dovid,” I said quickly. “That came out bad, I didn’t mean—”

Shmuli whimpered. I turned around and stuffed a pacifier into his mouth. Dovid was quiet. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled again.

“Raizy?” he said at last.

“Yes?”

“Can I know why you’ve been withdrawing so much money from the ATM lately?”

I sat up straight. “I… needed petty cash. Nothing special.”

“Nothing special petty cash? Raizy, you’ve been withdrawing several hundred dollars a week the past few weeks. Did you even check our balance?”

“I—”

“I have to pay the credit card bill by the 12th,” Dovid said. “Could you tell me where this money went?”

Why did I feel like a school kid getting a scolding from the principal? “I needed it, okay? It was important.”

“Important,” he repeated.

Yes. Sophia was important. Venishmartem meod l’nafshoseichem, right?

Right. Of course.

It took a two-hour wait at the doctor’s office to learn that “it’s probably a virus.” As soon as I came home, I drugged Shmuli up with Motrin, then assessed the house. Relatively clean — thank you, Sophia — except for whatever the kids managed to mess up after she’d left. There was some tuna salad and half-eaten rolls on the table, which meant that supper had happened, to some degree. Shaindy was growing up, she was learning stuff. That was amazing.

Amazing. Sure. Definitely.

I sat down on a kitchen chair, eyeing the supper leftovers gloomily. I didn’t get it. I’d had such an amazing day. Shaindy had even gotten the kids into bed. Why was I feeling so down now?

I stood up. I should ask Dovid if he’d had anything to eat. Come to think of it, I was hungry too. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. Maybe we should buy takeout?

Shaindy walked into the dining room, holding out the phone. “For you, Ma.”

I wanted to tell her to take a message, but she put the phone to my ear and ran off.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mrs. Neuman?”

“Yes?”

“This is Yaffa Hammer, Leila’s tutor. We need to talk.”

  

Vivian was back.

She was holding a latte, Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses perched on her sleek sheitel. Her nails gleamed.

My own nails gleamed, too, less than 24 hours since they were done, but I couldn’t look at them. I wanted to scrape them across the rough underside of the cabinet, scratch them into the ugliest mess. Those beautiful nails, buffed while Leila’s heart shattered in a million pieces.

“It was just a meltdown, and this was a one-time incident,” Yaffa had said, “but the truth is, Mrs. Neuman, Leila is regressing. She was doing so much better a few weeks ago, but now I feel like it’s one step forward, two steps back. And she looks so… sad. Did something change at home? Is she doing her homework?”

I’d stammered and blushed. No, Leila was not doing her homework, and not because she didn’t want to, but because her mother had stopped bothering.

Had stopped caring.

“Hey, you’re looking amazing, Raizy!” Vivian exclaimed. “New sheitel?”

I nodded stiffly. A new sheitel, a spur-of-the-moment decision I’d made when I saw a sheitel sale ad in a circular. Dovid had taken one look when I came home with it and hadn’t said a word.

Vivian smiled. “Beautiful. Great cut, wow.” I watched her eyes travel to my nails. “Did things settle down a bit in your life? Did you listen to my advice? I hope you’re having your morning coffee these days.” She chuckled.

Coffee? A four-dollar cup from Black Mug, every morning. My new routine.

“What are we working on today?” I asked brusquely.

But Vivian was in no rush. “It’s really about all those little things, making our needs a priority. Because self-care is not a luxury, it’s a necessity, you know.”

Sure, let’s frame that quote and hang it on the fridge.

I gave a stiff nod. Then I made a show of straightening my papers.

Vivian placed her phone on the counter. “Right, so this event. It’ll need some creativity because we’re working with a limited budget. But we still want it to be amazing.”

“Okay. What’s the event?”

“So it’s an organization that deals with kallahs from troubled homes. They help with all wedding arrangements, setting up the couple’s apartment, that kind of stuff.”

My skin went cold.

“It’s called Kallateinu,” Vivian said. “The party’s taking place December 1st.”

I knew exactly what it was called and when the party was taking place. The party’s in December, Mommy, we have plenty of time.

But then the time started running out, and my mother gave up on me. She had a florist daughter, a daughter who was fully capable of helping her plan her event, and she had to hire Vivian Graus. Dip into the meager funds she’d so painstakingly raised because her own daughter was too busy. Her own daughter was taking naps and getting massages.

Her own daughter didn’t care.

  

The house was spotless when I came home. Irksomely spotless.

There were packages of fish sticks and French fries in the freezer. All I had to do was pop them into the oven, then I could fit in a nap before the kids showed up for supper.

Of course, Leila and Tuli wouldn’t touch fish sticks. So they’d eat grilled cheese. Or cereal.

Or potato chips?

I drummed my fingers on the counter. Pasta. I could put up baked ziti, there was still time. And throw together a salad. I even had a container of onion soup in the freezer. Dovid loved onion soup.

Pasta — or a nap. I heard Naomi’s voice chattering in my head. A rested mother is more important than a five-course meal. Nobody ever died on a diet of cereal.

She was right. Of course she was right.

All those little things, Vivian?

Little things, but they felt so big suddenly.

  

I called Zissi while I waited for Naomi to pick me up for our yoga class. “I was thinking,” I told her. “It would be nice, you know, at the party, after Mommy says her speech, we should like go up on stage with flowers? I know it’s corny, but Mommy would feel like a million dollars, and I could put together something pretty at the florist, obviously.”

I was talking fast, the way I spoke when I was nervous. But Zissi loved the idea. “So cute! Mommy’s gonna be over the sun.”

I decided to let it go.

Leila walked into the living room. “Are you going to your yoga class?” she asked.

I was about to say yes when I noticed her face. Small and vulnerable, like the world was one big scary place. How did Yaffa put it? She looked so… sad.

I sat down on my yoga ball and grounded my feet. Yoga; unplugging, for the sake of my family, of course.

Caring for the people you love is caring for yourself. Raizy Neuman

“No,” I told Leila. “No, I’m not going. The weather’s beautiful today. How about we go outside on the deck and get your homework done?” 

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 854)