Remembrance of Days Past

So Wifey, D2, and I picked up D1 and the spoiled granddog on Brickell, and headed to my in laws' house. D2 brought her laptop, filled with pictures of her trip to Israel.

My mother in law doesn't cook like she used to , but there was still a batch of delicious latkes waiting to do battle with my Crestor...

We ate, and chatted, and D2 started the slide show.

It's funny --my mother in law wasn't too interested. Although Israel represented freedom from the Nazis, she doesn't remember her time there fondly. She had a hard time getting pregnant, and feuded mightily with her extended family. She would sit for hours watching the birds, and bemoaning her seeming barrenness...She asked the birds to help her...and then she became pregnant with Wifey, and named her the Hebrew name for bird...

Still, she felt no closeness to Israel, and happily left 4 years later. To this day, her longings are for her youth in Poland (she's been back 3 times to visit), even though that was the place where the Poles and Nazis killed her family. They stole her youth, too, and in many ways this 86 year old is trapped, emotionally, as a teenaged girl...Enough of this psycho babble. Bottom line: she doesn't miss Israel.

My father in law is completely different. He reminds me of the great book about old Cuban men living in Miami: "In Cuba I Was a German Sheperd." The book refers to little old men playing dominoes, and having little power in the US, but pining for the years where they were young, and vital --like great dogs.

My father in law fought in the IDF Special Forces in '48, and thereafter was an aide to big shots, like Moshe Dayan...He was at the height of his powers. The US always (and continues to) befuddle him. The roads, even in simple grid-like South Florida, are "stupid." He knew Israel like a London cab driver knows London, and it empowered him. His 8 years in Israel were truly his golden ones, and I think he still regrets emigrating to the US...

And so, he watched D2's slides with great focus --gaily shouting "I know Dat place!" and "I vas der MANY times!" He beamed, and was thrilled about D2's new love of Israel...

And then D2 played some Israeli music. He listened, enjoying the Hebrew lyrics. A young girl, with a voice like Jewel (Ofra something or other) sang "Jerusalem of Gold." Her rendition was pained and haunting, as is the song itself.

I looked over at my father in law, and saw something for the first time in the 28 years I've known him: he was crying. Not weeping, of course, but the tears were there --tears of missing his country, and his strength, and his youth.

In this space and time, he is an old man who barely walks. In 1948 he was a conquering soldier, building a homeland in the memory of his murdered family, and for the future of all of us.

I rarely cry, but my tears flowed, too. Sometimes it takes a man to understand a man's feelings. We didn't embrace or say anything, but yesterday afternoon, in the Century Village apartment I bought and paid for under some world class Jewish guilt and coercion, I felt more connected to my father in law than I ever had.

So, march on, Richard. Sometimes moments of exquisiteness and connection come at the most unexpected times.