The first winter Aviva spent alone in the old house was bitter and long.
Snow pressed against the windows, blanketing the world in relentless silence. Every creak of the wood, every sigh of the wind, seemed to fold into the growing ache in her chest. She thought waiting would get easier once she chose it—but every day she watched for a letter that didn’t come, listened for a knock that never sounded.
G-d, she thought sometimes bitterly, You say to wait patiently, but You don’t tell us how to live in the emptiness.
It had been nearly a year since she had written to Ezra, across the ocean in a land she couldn’t picture without a map. Her brother, her closest friend, the one who said he’d write as soon as he could. Yet the postbox remained empty.
Weeks wrapped around her like unseen vines, stealing her breath. She went to the market, she worked in her modest tailoring shop, she lit Shabbat candles—but often, her spirit moved like a ghost behind her actions. She began to wonder if she'd made a mistake staying in the tiny, crumbling village. Maybe she should have gone too, or at least moved somewhere new, where the shadows wouldn't remind her of what she lacked.
One gray afternoon, trudging home from the market, she paused on the old stone bridge near her house. The river below was mostly frozen, but a narrow braid of water still moved stubbornly through the ice, weaving silver into the cold.
She leaned over the side, blinking back tears. "Ezra," she whispered. "Tell me you're still out there."
The cold stung her cheeks, and she pulled her scarf tighter. As she turned to leave, something caught her eye—a tiny bud poking through the snow at the river’s edge. Aviva stepped closer. A scrap of green, fragile, trembling, yet impossibly alive in the middle of winter.
A memory stirred—the voice of her grandfather in the garden, long ago.
"Patience, neshameleh," he'd said as they knelt in the dirt, planting spring bulbs against the autumn chill. "Good things grow in silence. Trust the time you cannot see."
That night, Aviva sat by the small lamp in her kitchen, sewing a tear in an old coat. Outside, the wind picked at the shutters. Inside, she slowed her breathing, listening—not for a letter, not for a footfall on the porch, but for the quiet heartbeat of G-d's promises in her waiting.
Maybe faith wasn’t a loud, glowing certainty. Maybe it was the fragile decision to plant, to mend, to light candles in a dark room—not because she had proof of the spring, but because somewhere deep inside, she trusted it would come.
Ezra’s letter still didn’t come that week, or the next. But one morning, carrying bread to a neighbor, she found herself laughing softly at a little girl’s clumsy snowman in the village square—coal eyes listing sideways, carrot nose missing, arms waving triumphantly toward the sky.
The laughter, sudden and bright, surprised her.
It didn't heal everything. It didn’t bring Ezra home.
But it was enough to remind her she wasn’t lost.
Waiting, she realized, didn’t have to be emptiness. It could be hope, still and stubborn as the river under the ice—alive even when unseen.
And somehow, in that knowing, she wasn’t alone.
—
Supporting Torah/Tanakh Verses:
The first winter Aviva spent alone in the old house was bitter and long.
Snow pressed against the windows, blanketing the world in relentless silence. Every creak of the wood, every sigh of the wind, seemed to fold into the growing ache in her chest. She thought waiting would get easier once she chose it—but every day she watched for a letter that didn’t come, listened for a knock that never sounded.
G-d, she thought sometimes bitterly, You say to wait patiently, but You don’t tell us how to live in the emptiness.
It had been nearly a year since she had written to Ezra, across the ocean in a land she couldn’t picture without a map. Her brother, her closest friend, the one who said he’d write as soon as he could. Yet the postbox remained empty.
Weeks wrapped around her like unseen vines, stealing her breath. She went to the market, she worked in her modest tailoring shop, she lit Shabbat candles—but often, her spirit moved like a ghost behind her actions. She began to wonder if she'd made a mistake staying in the tiny, crumbling village. Maybe she should have gone too, or at least moved somewhere new, where the shadows wouldn't remind her of what she lacked.
One gray afternoon, trudging home from the market, she paused on the old stone bridge near her house. The river below was mostly frozen, but a narrow braid of water still moved stubbornly through the ice, weaving silver into the cold.
She leaned over the side, blinking back tears. "Ezra," she whispered. "Tell me you're still out there."
The cold stung her cheeks, and she pulled her scarf tighter. As she turned to leave, something caught her eye—a tiny bud poking through the snow at the river’s edge. Aviva stepped closer. A scrap of green, fragile, trembling, yet impossibly alive in the middle of winter.
A memory stirred—the voice of her grandfather in the garden, long ago.
"Patience, neshameleh," he'd said as they knelt in the dirt, planting spring bulbs against the autumn chill. "Good things grow in silence. Trust the time you cannot see."
That night, Aviva sat by the small lamp in her kitchen, sewing a tear in an old coat. Outside, the wind picked at the shutters. Inside, she slowed her breathing, listening—not for a letter, not for a footfall on the porch, but for the quiet heartbeat of G-d's promises in her waiting.
Maybe faith wasn’t a loud, glowing certainty. Maybe it was the fragile decision to plant, to mend, to light candles in a dark room—not because she had proof of the spring, but because somewhere deep inside, she trusted it would come.
Ezra’s letter still didn’t come that week, or the next. But one morning, carrying bread to a neighbor, she found herself laughing softly at a little girl’s clumsy snowman in the village square—coal eyes listing sideways, carrot nose missing, arms waving triumphantly toward the sky.
The laughter, sudden and bright, surprised her.
It didn't heal everything. It didn’t bring Ezra home.
But it was enough to remind her she wasn’t lost.
Waiting, she realized, didn’t have to be emptiness. It could be hope, still and stubborn as the river under the ice—alive even when unseen.
And somehow, in that knowing, she wasn’t alone.
—
Supporting Torah/Tanakh Verses:
