The alarm went off at 6am to begin waking up for day two in the sacred marathon that is Rosh Hashannah (Yes, it’s not over yet). I smacked my phone (as I do on the daily) to turn off the alarm and said, “Five more minutes.”

It was only thirty seconds later that the life inside me gave me a little poke. I thought to myself, “I can now say, I get to meet you NEXT MONTH.” It’s surreal, it’s joyful, it’s scary, and I’m ready to feel ready.

Amidst this serene morning greeting, I cannot help but feel despair. Life is not perfect. These happy moments are balanced by uncertainty and memory.

We have been quiet about a situation facing our family these past few weeks. While it’s not my place to go into details here… it has shaken us, and made us look at life with a new lens. It is a reminder that everything can change in one instant… just like the miscarriage last year… and the fateful night our hometown faced two years ago tonight… One October.

It was break the fast, I was my typical Cantor-self, exhausted but running on adrenaline, and I decided to hop on a red eye to Miami to spend ten hours with the Chazzband (who was being a mensch, working for FEMA on hurricane relief efforts for the past five weeks… we had never been apart so long in our fifteen years together). After having breakfast with my Poppy (grandpa) z”l and great aunt and uncle, Jeremy and I spent the afternoon together, and I hopped back on a flight to Vegas.

Understandably, I fell asleep on the plane. (I think I had been awake forty hours at that point.) When I woke up, I looked down at my watch and saw that it was 11PM… we should have landed at 10:30PM, but we were still in the sky.

I felt it. Something was wrong. Was it the plane? No less than two minutes passed and the pilot came on the speaker… “Something is happening down in Las Vegas… we cannot land the plane… we are heading to Phoenix… that’s all the information I have right now.”

‘Something׳ is happening? What does THAT mean? Of course, I was on a flight with no Wi-Fi and my phone was at 25% battery. I needed to know what was happening at home. Finally, as we hovered over our Phoenix landing, I was able to get through to my sister. “There are shooters all over the strip. The police are scrambling. It’s a mess. We are so scared. I’m with my friend at her house, I’m okay. Mom is okay.” Well, she picked up that news on the police scanner, which later proved to be false… but the mass shooting wasn’t. A few minutes later, she called back with more of the real details. I heard “Route 91 festival” and hung up the phone to call my friend Dani… because I knew she was there. (Before Jeremy took the FEMA job, we were we’re going to buy tickets and go that night with Dani and Brian.) She answered…in a panic…. a woman who never panics. She was running for her life, she had dodged bullets… and thank God, she and Brian were safe.

When we hung up, I prayed. I trembled. I just wanted to go home.

We sat on the tarmac in Phoenix for two hours and were cleared to fly back to Las Vegas. It was 2:30am when we landed, and I’ve never walked through a more eerie and quiet McCarren Airport. My sister picked me up, and drove back to her house…. trying to figure out how we could help. The blood banks were already filling up. The community began to band together like never before. The biggest tragedy became Vegas Strong. There were weeks of giving, praying and remembering that followed. Including an amazing concert I had the privilege of organizing with the selfless time and talent of my colleagues in the global Jewish community. It was the most beautiful thing out of such incredible darkness.

If we weren’t there on One October, we all knew someone there that night. Every Las Vegan was hit by the largest mass shooting in American history.

Life moves so quickly… and after this tragedy the rest of the world seemed to move onto the next and then the next. But when the yahrzeit comes, it is a reminder for us to stop, remember, reflect, and take any steps we can towards building a better future. It cannot be a distant memory, but instead shape our journey.

May we spend today remembering the 58 lives lost… too soon… before their true potential known.

May your day, this day of newness in the new year, be a fresh start to tackle whatever lies ahead. We may not be able to change what happened then or what happens now, but we can be the sun that shines on whatever darkens our day.

L’shana tova tikateivu v’techateimu