That Moment I Knew          

by Tova Hinda Siegel

                                                                                               

Why did I want to walk 

to the Chuppah alone?  

Why didn’t I want my father’s

strength to lean on?

We could have turned and run

the other way. A quick retreat

from what became years of sadness.

Instead, I held 

my flowers, lilacs and

lilies of the valley,

still my favorites, 

in my shaking hands.  

When I looked up –

and I didn’t want to look up –

I could see him

and my mother smiling,

under the Chuppah, waiting.

I stood, so far away, 

solitary as a leaf, 

fallen on the winter ground.

* * * * *

Tova Hinda Siegel’s work has appeared in Salon.com, I’ll Take Wednesdays, On The Bus, and several anthologies.  She holds a BA from Antioch University and an MS from USC. A midwife, cellist, mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Tova has studied with Jack Grapes, Tresha Faye Haefner, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner. A mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Tova and her husband live in Los Angeles.