Rachel Goldberg-Polin: The Appeal of a Mother Who Buried Her Only Son

Destiny tapped me on the shoulder from behind. When I turned around, he ducked and was gone. Nothing has ever been the same. It never will be.

So here is my new path, breath, pulse. Here is my new life.

At 8:23 a.m. on the morning of October 7, 2023 my only son Hersh’s last written words to me came up on my cell phone in two consecutive texts. “I love you” and “I’m sorry.”

He had been a person. A civilian, music lover, soccer enthusiast, traveling citizen of the world, friend, brother, grandson, firstborn, and only son. But in that instant Hersh became a one-armed (after his dominant left forearm was blown off), stolen, tortured, and starved hostage. Eventually, Hamas executed him in a tunnel 65 feet underground in Gaza.

Today, 668 days since he was stolen, and 340 days after Hersh was murdered with five other beautiful luminous young people, we are all still sitting here waiting.

Who are “we all”? All of us. You, who are reading this. And you who are not reading this.

We are waiting for people with power to decide it is enough. We are waiting for people across borders, political lines, and religious views to decide to stop blaming and to start aspiring to be the best that humans can be.

I confess I am not sure what that is anymore.

For my first 53 years I was at the bottom of the deep end of the pool of naivete. I actually thought the world worked one way: be kind, be respectful, work hard, raise your kids well, pay your taxes. But in the crash course of geopolitics, I came to learn that every single thing is transactional. That the world works based on interests and equities. And that we human beings, though we tell ourselves otherwise to get through the day, can be quite vicious.

My worldview was dashed, like babes against the rocks in Psalm 137. Almost two years in, now I know better.

With thousands and thousands suffering in our battered region, I would like to get up on the highest table in the area and, like Norma Rae, in the movie I was too young to understand, hold up a homemade sign that plainly says, “enough.”

Enough of the hostage families trying to convince the world that stealing our children is not an option. Enough of innocent people suffering from lack of resources: water, food, clothing, medical care. Enough of leaders who use their people as props.

It’s time for this excruciation to end.

The innocent people in Gaza, the ones who have lived there for a long time, and the innocent people in Gaza who were dragged there from Israel on October 7, 2023, have had it. We, the people who love them, are broken.

And so, you handfuls of men who have the ability, make this end. Right now.

Here’s the real truth you need to swallow. One day you will be gone. I hate to be the bearer of reality, but no matter what exciting and thrilling things you feel like you are doing, you are dying. You will skedaddle from this world to wherever it is you think you are going, and you can’t take any of this with you.

So for the love of everything you love—power, ego, legacy, your adoring wife, or any combo of them all—make this end now. I appeal as a mother of a glorious forever 23-year-old son, for whom it is too late.

I appeal simply to you as a nobody. My name is Rachel, and I am an absolute nobody. And therefore, I am everybody.

You can make this happen. Talk in those quiet back rooms. Say whatever you want to have printed in the papers. Feed yourselves whatever you need to.

We don’t care. We nobodys, we everybodys, we are too exhausted to care.

I will parrot whatever will float your boat. We all will. Just let us lick our wounds. Allow us to eat food we cook in a home, and not over a fire outside of a makeshift tent in filth. Give us back our children—those who are starving in tunnels and being forced to dig their own graves. Literally. And those who have already been murdered. Let us bury our sons and daughters respectfully.

Just let us be. Don’t do this stuff in our names. Say you’re sorry, even if it’s only when you are alone in your bathroom at night looking at your own face in the mirror with the door closed. Whisper into your tired eyes while looking at your whiskers already growing again from this morning’s shave. Who do you think you are that you are above “sorry”?

Give us back our 50 hostages. Some are alive and some are only alive in our souls. Let the innocent people who are in Gaza have a chance. We are tired. We are done. We are children of God.

Stop playing with us and our lives.