Worry is my mother’s love language. It varies from worrying about the weather to potentially catastrophic real life scenarios that I won’t even write down for fear of them ever coming true (tu tu tu). There was the practical worrying that I’d brush off (“It’s going to rain, think about staying inside today”), and the impractical worrying that I’d laugh off (“There was a tornado eight states away, think about staying inside today”). Truthfully, I used to find her worry comical—until I became a mother myself. Growing up, I was never allowed to have sucking candies. Ever. Why is that, you may ask. Our neighbor once choked on one, and my mom had to jump in and help dislodge it. It was traumatic, so much so that they were banned from my home and from my vocabulary. Was it warranted? I have no idea, but I’ll tell you this: My kids have not, and likely will not have sucking candies for the foreseeable future. My daughter got a sucking candy in a goody bag at a recent birthday party, and asked, “Mom, what is this?” “Oh, it’s like a lollipop,” I said. “But they forgot to put the stick on it so we can’t eat it, oh well, into the garbage it goes…” Thinking back, my worry was always there, and for good reason. My husband and I haven’t even been married a decade, and have already experienced our fair share of loss. Now, as a mother to two young children, I just have more people and things to worry about. And even though it took me nearly 40 years to truly understand that worry does not, in fact, change the outcome of anything, I still worry. I worry about the small things. I worry that even though my son loved crackers and hummus yesterday, he won’t love crackers and hummus today and will abstain from eating his lunch that I so lovingly packed him, and the school will call me to tell me he’s starving. But fear not—I don’t just worry about the small things. I worry about the state the world will be in when my toddlers become teenagers. I worry about where we’ll live. I worry about the choices my children will make once they’re older. I worry about the choices I’ll make as a mother. Because that’s what we do as Jewish mothers. We worry. ...

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