The Grieving Matriarch

After WWII, my great grandmother, Sarah Kopel, received a letter informing her that of the tribe she had left behind in Poland, only three granddaughters survived. Everyone else—twenty eight descendants, including seven children, their spouses, fifteen grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter—had perished. Sarah retreated to her room. For seven days and nights, the duration of the Jewish Shiva, she fasted, wept, screamed, and mourned. She tore letters and pictures. When the week was over, she uttered a quote from Job 1:21: "ה' נָתַן וה' לָקָח, יְהִי שֵׁם ה' מְבֹרָךְ" ("the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord"). She never mentioned any of them again.