An October Miracle

As a graphic designer, I am used to seeing the months of the year by colors. For most of my life, October was painted in the warmest and most joyful shades there are. This love for this month goes with me all the way back to childhood. Almost always, the birthday I share with Adina, my twin, fell exactly on the holiday of Sukkot, and we would spend hours together with the neighborhood kids inside the Sukkah.

It was always our month, the absolute peak of the year for us.

This coming Monday, I will mark my first birthday since relocating to Albania, in my new and temporary home. October here looks completely different. Autumn is already well felt in the streets, the trees are changing their colors, the air is changing temperature, and I find myself looking at the view from my window, curious to discover what winter will look like here, and mostly hoping for an October miracle.

October in an Albanian neighborhood

But despite the beginning of the fall foliage and the new scenery outside, since the seventh of October - exactly today - three years ago, my internal color, the happy one of October, has completely changed. The month I loved so much was painted in black then, and in gray ever since, and everything that was will never be the same again. Since then, I have merely passed my last three birthdays rather than celebrated them. It was hard to find a real reason to rejoice when everything in the background was collapsing. Now, being physically far away, this dissonance only intensifies. The body may be getting used to a new and foreign place, but the heart remains strongly tied to our home - in Israel.

Albanian fall foliage

This October, the best birthday gift I can receive is the profound change I am so desperately wishing for. In 15 days we are packing a suitcase and flying to Israel. This is not a routine homeland visit, even though the heart already expands at the thought of hugging the kids, meeting my parents, family, and friends. This trip is laden with emotions because we are flying with a clear goal not only to influence but to change and cast our vote in the elections. Pausing our temporary lives here for a moment to return home during such a period is accompanied by a lot of excitement, alongside a heavy heart over the complex reality currently unfolding in Israel. But we are traveling because we have to take part. We are traveling to help replace a government that has long ceased to manage our country, a government that has ceased to be mine. I am traveling to see with my own eyes how Israel begins to breathe again, rising from the deep fracture of recent years, from the wars, the grief, and the disappointments, and choosing a different future. This hope, alongside the longing for my people, is what drives us to get on that plane.

I want this October to be written in the books as the month when my children's future suddenly regained the optimism it had lost. Beneath all the big thoughts, the distance, and the hope for national change, there ultimately hides a simple, personal request. Like a little girl squeezing her eyes shut and wishing for a dream to come true in front of the candles on a cake, I simply want my birthday month to go back to being the happiest month for me. I hope that this year this wish comes true, and we all get to see an October miracle.