This past Sunday morning, I caught the Regional out of South Station to Moynihan Train Hall, hoping to reach the Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns, on the East Side, in plenty of time for the birth of my third grandchild. I’m not a seasoned New York visitor, so the city always overwhelms me — the noise and the people and the traffic and the smell of machine grease, armpits, and pizza. I ordered an Uber and promptly lost the driver in the melee on 8th Avenue, so I hopped a cab for a four-mile ride that took an hour, thanks to the Philippine Independence Day Parade. No matter. I wasn’t really racing. My daughter was deep in labor, with no clear sense of what came next, and we crawled along bumper to bumper, horns blaring, while my driver swore softly in a language I couldn’t place. (When I climbed out, I asked; he smiled and said it was Dari, one of the languages of Afghanistan.) A tough ride. But I made it.
The Alexandra Cohen Hospital exists for one thing: caring for pregnant women and bringing babies into the world. The feeling when you walk in is otherworldly. There’s no crush of people coming and going. There’s no emergency room. There is unbelievably strict security. And there is a low wave of anxiety and expectation, a sense of waiting on the threshold. It’s a beautiful, singular space that feels almost sacred — and just a little bit scary.
Molly’s labor was intense and difficult, full of pain, until the doctors finally eased it. I won’t narrate the whole of it. I’ll only say that it was soul-crushing to watch my little girl in so much distress. I wished there were something I could do, even as I knew there was nothing — nothing but staying out of the way, which I managed rather well, I must say. In the end she needed a C-section, and it went smoothly, resulting in a beautiful, healthy baby and mom.
I walked into the birthing suite and looked at mother and daughter — and my fabulous son-in-law — all of them sleepy and triumphant. This new baby, so beautiful, so blessed, so exquisite, was finally here. I couldn’t hold her yet, but I could stroke her head and give Molly a kiss. In that moment, I felt such joy — as if I’d discovered a new star in my own small universe. The radiance was overwhelming.
Her name is Edie Tamar Ellenberg. Edie is named for my son-in-law’s uncle David and for a dear family friend, Adina Jick, a woman brimming with spirit and joie de vivre. Edie’s middle name honors my sister, Marta — another burst of light and laughter. And more: Edie shares a birthday with my firstborn son, Jonah. That’s more than coincidence. It’s an existential marker in my life — because Jonah’s own firstborn, Caleb, becomes a Bar Mitzvah this weekend.
I find myself wrapped in a soft, cushioned realm of memory and love. Remembering my wife Liza’s terribly hard labor, which also ended in a C-section. Remembering Jonah’s birth. Holding my son forty-three years ago. Holding my first grandchild, Caleb, thirteen years ago. And now Edie in my arms. So many endings and beginnings. I’m somewhere between the bookends, with so much celebration still to come. So much life, raw and multi-colored.
Sandy Denny sang, “Who knows where the time goes?” She was nineteen when she wrote it. The thing is, I do know where the time goes. Which makes all of this a blessed bursting star — full of family and new light — even as the arrow of time arcs into the darkening sky.
Thank you, Holy One, for love and wholeness and peace. Welcome, Edie Tamar Ellenberg. And mazel tov, Caleb Sol Stern. God bless us all.
Before Shabbat 