As a Mikvah attendant, I have witnessed many moments of deep emotion and transformation. But one evening stands out with particular tenderness — when I had the honor of guiding a woman, a friend, through her Mikvah immersion following a hysterectomy due to breast cancer.

For many years, one of my most personal companions was the mikvah. It arrived in my life when I was young and newly married — a little nervous, a little unsure, clutching a towel and a sense that I was stepping into something ancient and intimate.

I was 35 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, I had four little kids, ages six to one and a half. Overnight, we were thrown into a new world — genetics, surgery, chemo, and radiation.

What a blessed, joyous first experience for my daughter, embracing her into the mitzvah of mikveh immersion in a manner that will hopefully connect her to Hashem - and her beloved – with warm, wonderous ties of happiness and holiness, for blessed decades of fertility to come. It was this very positive experience of hers – and of mine alongside her – that struck me painfully as so very much in contrast to my own tevilla experiences.

But as the time drew near, I pushed these fair arguments out of my head and just took it one step at a time. I cleaned myself in a halachic permitting manner, checked myself, walked out of the house (I left my children with my guests) and trekked to the Mikvah...

When my husband Josh z”l passed away on May 18, 2023, I felt as though much of my own identity was lost with him. There are countless books on aveilut, on personal grief, and on family grief... Yet I have not found words that speak to the widow’s loss, to my loss, of religious identity.