On Day 843 since October 7, Jon and Rachel Goldberg Polin stood quietly beside the Gvili family as they finally brought Master Sgt Ran Gvili home for a proper and respectful burial.
It was a moment heavy with history, grief, and meaning.
The Goldberg Polins are not strangers to unbearable loss. They are the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. After nearly a year in Hamas captivity, Hersh and five other hostages were executed.
Yet on this day, their presence was not about themselves. It was about standing in solidarity with another family forced to bury a loved one far too late and far too painfully. It was about honoring all families who have had to bury sons and daughters since that dark day.
For the first time since October 7, Rachel Goldberg Polin removed the masking tape from herself.
The masking tape had become one of the most recognizable symbols of the hostage movement worldwide. It was Rachel who began the campaign, placing tape on herself each day and marking it with the growing number of days since the hostages were taken, a daily, visible reminder that time was passing while loved ones remained in captivity. The tape forced the world to confront what could not be ignored and what could not be allowed to fade.
For more than two years, she wore it as a living count of the days her son and others were held, their voices silenced but their absence measured, day by day.
Taking it off was not closure. It was acknowledgment. A moment marking grief that has shifted, but not ended.
Rachel is also the author of ‘When We See You Again,’ a deeply personal chronicle of maternal heartbreak written in the shadow of captivity and loss. The book documents the emotional terrain of a mother whose 23 year old son was taken, held, and ultimately murdered, while the world watched.
In her writing, Goldberg Polin gives voice to grief from inside the suffering itself. She does not write from distance or hindsight, but from within the pain. Her words trace love, devotion, mourning, longing, and a brokenness that refuses to be hidden.
“I sat down to write my pain, and out poured loss, suffering, love, mourning, devotion, grief, adoration and fracturedness,” she wrote. “This book recounts the first steps of a million mile odyssey that will take the rest of my life to walk on shattered feet.”
“And yet, there is elusive, but real, light on this trek. Yes, somewhere, light.”
She continues with words that resonate far beyond her own story.
“This is a glimpse into the un unique human enterprise of which we are all a part, though we like to cover our eyes and pretend we are not. Not me. Yes, you. Yes, all of us.”
As the Gvili family laid Ran to rest at last, the Goldberg Polins stood beside them, two families bound not by circumstance but by shared loss, shared courage, and shared refusal to let the fallen be forgotten.
Day 843 was not about answers. It was about presence.
And in that presence, grief spoke louder than words.
When We See You Again is available for preorder wherever books are sold.
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