The day before Pesach is always a race against time. Meals need to be prepared, chametz must be disposed of, tables require setting, and someone has to screw up the courage to grate the maror. By seder time, everyone is feeling exhausted, and yet exhilarated. It’s the same story every year – or at least it was for me, until last year.
On the day before Pesach last year, my wife and I packed up our daughter and our dog and shipped them off to my parents’ house, where we were planning to spend the holiday for the first time since we’d started dating. In the intervening years, we had always attended seders on the screened-in porch of my wife’s grandmother’s farm in Niagara, kept warm and cozy by a wood-burning stove (and four glasses of wine). Last year, though, we knew we would have to stay in Toronto.
I finished cleaning up at home, burned the remaining chametz on the barbecue out back and locked up. My wife was already in the car with one final piece of luggage. But we weren’t headed to join the festivities at my parents’ place. There was the small matter of welcoming our second child to attend to first.
We checked in at the hospital, where they confirmed that today was to be the day – just not yet. So, we drove to a trendy nearby neighbourhood, and, as a cold rain fell, walked up and down the streets, ducking into stores aimlessly. We were both trying to keep the mood light, laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Then the hospital called. It was time.
Our son was born minutes before the onset of Pesach. The three of us – my wife, the boy, whom we named after my maternal grandfather, and I – ushered in the holiday together at the hospital. Our daughter would meet him the next morning when she awoke. Her reaction was much more – shall we say – positive than mine when my younger sister was born almost 34 years ago. (“When are you taking her back?” I reportedly asked.)
A year later, we are preparing for a return engagement at my parents – the farm will have to wait another year, alas. The tiny creature we brought to the house I grew up in as midnight approached on that first night of Pesach, just as my father opened the door to welcome Elijah, has grown into a little man with an infectious smile. Our daughter has matured so much it seems unbelievable.
Without a doubt, this has been the most challenging year of our lives – having two kids, after all, makes raising one seem like, well, child’s play. (As for the dog, he might have had the roughest year of us all after he tore a ligament and required surgery to install a metal rod in one of his hind legs. But that won’t stop him from enjoying his matzah brei.)
It’s all been worth it, of course. And as our family prepares to celebrate our people’s freedom, this year we’ll have an extra story of Passover liberation to talk – and laugh – about at the seder.
Chag Samayach.
