On the way to the grocery store, Noa suddenly recognized the mother of her first great love in the elderly woman walking toward her. To her shock, the woman recognized her too and couldnt hold back her tears.
For the first time in ten years, Noa drove down the street where she had grown up, in a small village in the Galilee. Though she now sat in an expensive car, she felt anything but safe returninga flood of unpleasant childhood memories surged within her. Long ago, she had sworn never to set foot here again, yet something pulled her back to the village where she had been born and raised.
Noa had been raised by her mother, Tova, aloneher father had died before she turned three. She knew him only from photographs. The two lived modestly: Tova worked as a veterinarian in the area but had little time for a garden of her own and didnt earn much.
“Dont worry, my sweet,” Tova would say. “As long as youre healthy and happy, everything else will fall into place.”
Noa grew into a beautiful young woman, making her a sought-after bridethough without much of a dowry to offer. At a village festival, she met a boy named Eitan from a nearby town. For Noa, it was her first true love, something that troubled her mother. Eitan came from a wealthy family, and Tova feared he would abandon her daughter once the initial passion faded. Noa reassured hershe was convinced Eitan was sincere, that money meant nothing to him. After six months of walks and dates, he brought his parents to ask for Noas hand. But the moment his mother saw the simple house, she paled. She said nothing, yet planted unease in Noas heart.
The wedding was set for the first Saturday in October. That morning, Noa felt strangely nervous, though she didnt know why. Her friends helped her pin up her hair and adjust her wedding dressbut Eitan never arrived. Her godfather (a close family friend) went to see what had happened, but Noa already sensed there would be no wedding.
“Whatever you say, I wont let my son ruin his life,” Eitans mother told the godfather.
Noa wept until dawn. And Eitan, under his parents pressure, left her abruptly. Her great love vanished like a candle snuffed out.
The next day, Noa packed her old travel bag and took the first bus to Haifa. There, she found workfirst as a waitress, later as a kitchen assistant. When an opportunity arose to go abroad and earn better money, she hesitated little. While away, she received word from relatives in the village that her mother, Tova, had passed. But there was no turning back; Noa was already on the plane.
Years passed. She worked hard, at first for meager wages, later for something better, and managed to save a little. But the wound of her first love never fully healed: she had not started a family of her own and still carried bitterness toward Eitan and his parents.
When Noa returned to her childhood village after all these years, people didnt recognize her at first. The once shy, kind girl had become an elegant, poised womanwell-dressed, yet with the same warm smile. Only her eyes held something sorrowful, even when she laughed.
One day, on her way to the village grocery, Noa froze when she realized the older woman approaching her was none other than Eitans mother. The woman looked up, recognized Noa, and immediately burst into tears.
“Noa is it really you? Please forgive me, child. I ruined your lifeand my sons. I only wanted the better match for him, but I broke him instead. Since he lost you, he never loved again. He drowned his sorrows in bottles. Thats my fault, and now I must live with it.”
Noa pitied Eitans mother. The woman was gaunt, exhausted. In that moment, Noa felt the bitterness she had carried for years dissolveshe saw that the people who had once shattered her heart had paid a steep price: the loss of their own happiness.
