The glow of the Shabbat candles flickered against the polished wood of the dining table, their light soft and warm, like the embrace of something eternal. Bubbe and Saba were at it again, their voices intertwining in a dance of Hebrew and Yiddish, half argument, half performance. It was never about the words, not really. It was about rhythm, about presence. They could be debating the state of the world, or they could be discussing whose kugel recipe was superior. Either way, the passion was the same.
Mother sat at the head of the table, her face illuminated in a way that made her look younger. This was the real her, or at least a version I wished were real. Not the tight-lipped woman who moved through the week with exhaustion clinging to her shoulders. Tonight, she was smiling—genuinely smiling.
Across the table, my older siblings were engaged in some teenage world I barely understood, and my little brother, relentless as always, was in my ear. “Did you know,” he said, voice brimming with the urgency of childhood obsession, “that the biggest—” and then something about space, or dinosaurs, or the Torah, I couldn't remember.
I gave him the occasional nod, but my mind drifted. Across the Shabbat table, I pictured my best friend’s face, his laughter, the way his curls bounced when he ran. A warmth settled in my chest, and I didn’t understand it—not yet. I only knew it felt safe, like something secret but not forbidden.
For a moment, just a moment, everything felt normal. The kind of normal that didn’t beg to be questioned. A normal built on tradition, on routine, on the idea that the world was as it should be.
Later, I would understand the things that sat in the spaces between—the grief that lingered after Chaya, the weight of expectations, the quiet truths about myself I would only name years down the line. But in that moment, with the candlelight flickering and Bubbe gesturing wildly over a plate of challah, the past and future faded.
And for once, the present was enough.