No one knows better than I do — though all too many Jews (and others) know exactly what I know — that the pain of losing a close dear loved one is inconsolable — forever. It never goes away. Time heals the trauma — perhaps — but it does not heal the wound. If time turns the open sore into an emotional scar, nevertheless that scar keeps piercing open again and again.

My father died of leukemia at his age 45, my 14. I have never gotten over that despite my tough exterior and the passage of half a century. I am still an orphan. And the life-partner who was and remains the love of my life died five years ago of glioblastoma at her age 64, my 67, and my life never ever has been or will be the same. (I am not a complainer; I am an optimist. I still tell people I root for the New York Jets. But what’s true is true.)

I am not alone in my pain, particularly as a Jew. The 1200 families of the October 7 murdered are no different. Holocaust families. Families of those stabbed or shot by Arabs. And even families whose dearest died of heart or lung disease or kidney or liver disease or tuberculosis or hurricane or tsunami or earthquake, the whole Yom Kippur litany of Un’taneh Tokef.