I was waiting for the phone call. I grabbed it as soon as it rang, and I heard the news. Mazel tov! It’s a girl! My sister’s baby daughter was born on Tisha B’av afternoon. Unexpectedly, following the waves of joy came the pangs of hurt fast and furiously. Everything seemed wrong. My mother should have been the one to call me with the news. Instead I was asking my brother-in-law if he needed help making phone calls. It didn’t take long for the tears to come. I missed my mother.
It was so easy for me to imagine my mother sitting on the phone making call after call, informing everyone of this simchah. I could see her excited face and hear her excited voice. I could imagine the discussion of when there would be a kiddush and when my parents would come in. But we have none of that. My parents aren’t here to enjoy this simchah.
Typically, it’s so important for me to focus on what I have and to appreciate the good with which Hashem did bless me with. But this day was Tisha B’av. Tisha B’av is the day to look at our pain and suffering, to bring it to Hashem and cry to him, to beg him to end our suffering with the geulah. This day is the day to be in touch with our pain, to really feel it, to own it and to connect it to our living in galus. Tisha B’av is to mourn what we don’t have and to realize that we are missing out on so much, that what we have is not enough. We so desperately need Mashiach and the geulah.
My newborn niece is named after my mother. The name Nechamah, comfort, was added on. This baby should iy”H bring comfort to her parents and to the whole family. And this should be the year when all of Klal Yisroel should be comforted with the geulah sheleimah
