Some thoughts about my Dad

Entry 12: Tuesday July 8th

It’s so much fun to watch my Dad interact with his friends and his family. He’s so in his element. He is so much more himself than in the States. If you were to do an MRI of my Dad’s brain, I’m sure you would see a variety of areas lighting up at once, especially as he bounces from speaking Hebrew to French to English to Italian to Arabic to French to English and back to Hebrew again. (This really happened!). I watch him schmooz and send the room into laughter at one of his jokes (in any one of the above languages); I quietly observe him quietly observing the environment; I hear him, time and time again, yelping in excitement when he sees on the side of the road, yet another seemingly random archway, (which he calls a portal). I am convinced that the world (including said subject) underestimates him.
From this trip I want to remember my Dad’s
--ebullient curiosity and sense of humor. He has a
--jokester’s mind and poet’s sensitivity.
Earlier today, in his whimsical way, he said that he would move to Israel, then wait a few years before running for and being elected to the Knesset. I wouldn’t want my Dad to be a World Leader. I don’t think he’s cut out for it. And then I started thinking. The same way that my Dad is not cut out to be a World Leader, there must be some World Leader who is not cut out to be a Dad. I’m sure there is a man, more than one I bet, who can run the U.N. but not his own household; who has love for world peace, but not for his own child. Thank G-d my Dad is my Dad, perfect for me.
There is no other person I know that has his combination of unbridled and tender love for me, which I think he must check and balance, because I sense at times, that if he didn’t, his heart would burst from the magnitude of it all. This is just what I’ve picked up on after being his daughter for 24 years. How wonderful to be me, the daughter of such a Dad. During this trip I think that I have found a new depth of love for him. He’s so special to me.