# Three years after October 7, a mother grieves without healing

> Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was killed after 328 days in Hamas captivity, writes about living with unbearable loss and rejecting the pressure to recover.
- Title: Three years after October 7, a mother grieves without healing
- Summary: Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was killed after 328 days in Hamas captivity, writes about living with unbearable loss and rejecting the pressure to…
- Keywords: hersh goldberg-polin, rachel goldberg-polin, october 7, hostages, gaza, grief, loss, Three, years, October, mother, grieves
- Source: TIME — https://time.com/article/2026/10/06/hoping-for-better-3-years-since-oct-7
- Author: Rachel Goldberg-Polin
- Published: 2026-10-06T15:00:08+00:00
- Read time: 3 min
- Topics: hersh goldberg-polin, rachel goldberg-polin, october 7, hostages, gaza, grief, loss
## A mother frozen in time
Rachel Goldberg-Polin will always be the mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, her eldest son and only boy, who will always be twenty-three years old. She is stuck in time and cannot move.

> Hersh will always be 23-years-old.
## Taken from a peace festival
On October seventh, Hersh was taken from a music festival advertised as being for peace, love, and unity. He was held hostage for three hundred twenty-eight days before his captors executed him with five other young people in a tunnel underneath Gaza.
## His body returned destroyed
Hersh's body was returned to Rachel skeletal, bearing signs of torture, filthy, missing his left forearm blown off during abduction, and with six bullet wounds. She awakes every day to the confusion of this truth.
## A day of infamy for her generation
October seventh, twenty twenty-three is Rachel's generation's day of infamy, like September eleventh, two thousand one or the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is the day her before ended and she and her family were thrust into an odyssey of hardship.
## Two hundred fifty-one hostages taken
Two hundred fifty-one treasured hostages were abducted on October seventh. Rachel and all their families ran in excruciating pain trying desperately to save them, but dozens went in alive, survived torture for hundreds of days, only to be murdered before they could be saved.
## Hostages from thirty-nine nations
The hostages taken on October seventh were from thirty-nine different nations. They were Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. The youngest was a nine-month-old redheaded baby and the oldest was a mustachioed grandpa. They kept themselves alive somehow.
## No, we are not getting better
People ask Rachel if she is getting better emotionally, psychologically, mentally, spiritually. She answers no. She is not getting better. She aspires to get different, to adapt to this bewildering truth, but she is trapped in a cage of suffering.

> No, we are not getting better.
## Toxic positivity is emotional barbarism
When people want and demand healing, Rachel has learned this is called toxic positivity. It is emotional barbarism and emotional denial. She can fake it, act, pretend, and lie, but the bars of her prison of pain remain invisible to those who see her.
## Hersh remained hopeful in captivity
Hersh had planned and saved for years to travel the world. His flight was booked for December twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-three, but he was still being held hostage on that date. Yet he told his captors in a video and fellow hostages that he was hopeful.
## Love is stronger than death
Rachel has learned that love is stronger than death. Her love for Hersh continues blooming and is more intricate than when he was alive. Grief is a badge of love, but it is pinned to her skin so it hurts when she inhales or exhales.

> Love does not die. It grows.
## Hersh at eleven months, now buried
On September eleventh, two thousand one, Hersh was eleven months old with big brown eyes like cookies and a furry white polar bear he slept with. That Hersh is now buried in a grave overlooking a forest, five miles from where Rachel writes this.
## A prayer for those in sorrow
As October seventh approaches three years later, Rachel prays for all those in sorrow that someday, somehow and someway, they become different. She holds and wields love as her only power, with no other compass to guide her forward.

> I pray for all of us in sorrow that some day, somehow and someway, we become different.
## Key takeaway

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin killed after 328 days in captivity, rejects expectations to heal, saying grief is permanent and love for her son continues to grow.