A Mother's Love Never Dies

When the prophet Shmuel (Samuel) was a young boy, his mother lovingly sewed a robe for him each year (I Samuel 2:19). A bystander, watching her work tirelessly year after year to craft garments her son would soon outgrow, might have wondered if her efforts were worthwhile. After all, every mother of young children knows that even the finest clothing on an active boy doesn’t stay beautiful for long. Why, then, did Samuel’s mother devote herself to hand-sewing a new robe each year?

What that bystander could not have known was that far from being worn out and discarded, the robes his mother fashioned would accompany Shmuel for the rest of his life—and beyond.

Jewish tradition firmly holds that a person's physical belongings do not accompany them to the Next World. Yet, there seems to be an exception for Samuel’s robe. Many years later, when King Saul sought to contact Shmuel’s spirit through the woman of Ein-Dor (I Samuel 28:14), she described the deceased prophet as “an old man wrapped in a robe.” It turns out that his mother wasn’t simply completing a yearly sewing project—she was creating an eternal garment that would cloak her son forever.

A parent’s daily tasks often seem fleeting and insignificant. Washed dishes are dirtied at the next meal, clean laundry is soiled the next day, and freshly mended pants are ripped within a week. But Samuel’s robe teaches us a profound truth: the loving, intentional, prayer-filled efforts of a parent may seem temporary, but they are, in fact, eternal. A robe stitched with love and devotion transcends time—even death itself.

This weekend, our family will celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of my delightful niece. As we rejoice in this milestone with gratitude and joy, we also deeply feel the absence of her mother—my sister—who is no longer physically with us. The closer we get to this weekend, the more I reflect on the last time I shared this teaching, in a conversation with my sister toward the end of her life. She understood, just as Shmuel’s mother did, that her loving devotion to her children would surround and protect them forever.

A mother’s love never dies.