Hanukkah – Night Five

This time of year is difficult for me. This season is very much family-oriented and since my grandma died, our family has never been the same. My mom and I no longer speak to any of them, so we only have each other. I try my best to pretend that the holidays don’t exist, which is near impossible when I go to a store.

I often refer to Temple as my second home and the people I have chosen to be my family have ties to it. Still, that doesn’t make the holidays easier to cope with, though I’ve been much better about it this year. Judaism is very much community and family-centered, which is what I love about it. That doesn’t make it any easier when I’m lighting candles by myself, but knowing I have a community to fall back on comforts me very much and I feel incredibly lucky to have finally found that.