Reuniting with Dad

Entry 9b: Thursday July 3, 2008

It was such a challenge organizing how I would meet Dad from the end of Birthright-- I didn’t have cell phone reception, then I ran out of telephone minutes, then because of a terrorist incident our timing and locations were changed…oy!
But when we finally arrived together, wow.
After talking to the tour bus driver at Zion Gate parking lot and after waiting 20 minutes, Dad decided to come to the restaurant which is inside the Old City in the Jewish quarter. Of course, as things go, we left, and he missed us, and so I arrived at the buses while he was at the restaurant. After I got my luggage from under the bus and approached a married couple who I believed to be Ronnie and Ruthie, my dad’s beloved friends from his early days in Israel, I looked to the stairs that ascend into the Old City. The more I think about this, the more I feel that this is so movie material. I stare at the stairs for about five seconds and see a shadow cast by the lamps. Behind the stairs rise the majestic walls of the city. My Dad emerges, descending the stairs, and off I fly, backpack bouncing, running on a freshly sprained ankle. “Dad!” “Daddy!” I shout, as I weave through and dodge the cars in the parking lot. He looks up and hurries down the stairs. We meet, we embrace on the threshold of the staircase leading to Jerusalem’s Old City. We start crying. I can’t believe I’m hugging my father in our homeland, that I’ve finally made it to him. That we are both here, after plane trips, after physical and financial sacrifices; we are here together, ready to begin our Israel journey, together.
P.S.: In the car ride to Haifa, the first song playing on the radio was from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Read into it what you may.