The Unknown Life

The rabbi at our shul gave a fascinating d’var Torah on Kol Nidre, and one part of it felt applicable to infertility. He spoke about how when we meet someone new, they only know about the choices we’ve chosen. They see all of the decisions that have brought us to this point, and that’s really all they see.

But as they spend time with you, moving forward, they start to see all of the discarded choices, too. The ones you make from that point forward. At least, the big ones; the ones they know about because you make 35,000 decisions daily.

I liked the idea that people who have known me a long time also know some of my otherwises and roads-not-taken that also shape who I am. I am just as much my ghost child’s mother as I am the twins’ mother. People meeting me now don’t know about that choice that shapes who I am, but Josh certainly does. People who have known me a long time do. You do.

And when you see me, you see what is here (the twins) and what is not here (the ghost child, who became a road not taken) at the same time.

He quoted someone (and I wish I had written it down), pointing out that when you’re looking at a portrait, the background is also part of the painting. It exists, too, even if it isn’t the focus, the thing we see. We all have background, empty space behind us, filled with all of our unchosen roads.