My dad died in the summer. It was a hot, moonless Saturday evening — June the 20th, 1970. The crickets were loud, the air thick, my mouth dry.
Now, reading my son a book, thirty-three years later, about the landing on the moon, the date seems strangely familiar. My dad died exactly one year after Neil Armstrong touched the moon’s ground. “One small step for man, one giant leap for man-kind,” repeats my son after Armstrong, sensing the importance of the statement. His red lips articulate the words with a slight sweet lisp, he looks so serious. An image of my dad’s drawing his ear closer to the tube radio listening with anticipation to Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, floods me. Thirty-three years dissolved into this moment as if waiting to be fused.
He notices my drifting gaze. He tries once more, louder; “one step for man, big, giant, humongous jump…” and I laugh drawing him closer to me feeling his smooth skin, firm muscles, his bittersweet smell. He is getting ready for mischief… his eyes smile… he leans backward.
I was five years older than my son is now — nine years old, on that hot June night.
The smell of burned fires and geraniums, the cricket’s sound subsiding into my mother’s shouts and loads of people filling up the house. All I feel is my throat — an inflamed hall into a dark opening — forcing dry swallows.
“You want to see a somersault? Watch me mom watch me” he tries again. I drift again. “Wow Adam! That was some somersault…when did you learn that?” I can’t keep up with the speed of the new things he learns. I want to celebrate each conquest, to etch it in time, to narrate its magical unfolding into my memory.
When did I learn to somersault? I can smell the green hill, feel its dampness, my head on the grass going down twice, slight nausea, wet back, an itch of rough grass on the neck, my dad ’s smile. He saw. He noticed. No “wow” from my dad, only a quiet smile. We are different, him and me.
“I can even do a cartwheel, look, look Mom”. I look around for sharp things; he tries and falls, “I did it in gymnastics… here look Mom.” His little chest goes up and down. He works so hard for me. How long will this last? He throws himself into my arms with the total trust only kids and ballerinas have. “Do you sometimes wish you were me?” he suddenly asks. Yes, no, I am, I think, I don’t know, “It is a really good question,” I finally say. “But do you mom?” He insists with desperation. “Well,” I try to buy time… interpreting his question, as simply, do you love me? I am able to answer clearly “yes I do.” His eyes smile with victory. “I wish I were you” he says and quickly corrects himself “I wish I were you and Daddy all mixed together.” I notice myself trying not to think how much am I my mom and dad? “It is time to take a bath, put on your pajamas” I say, “and then we’ll read one more book”.
He sleeps. Where do his dreams take him? I touch his precious head. He sweats… probably keeps on working on his somersaults. I whisper good night to him realizing I use English even when I am alone. I hastily correct “Lila tov matok sheli” but my mother tongue foreignly echos back. One more try in English, “good night my sweetheart”. But it all sounds distant and strange – a loss. Loss of mother tongue — of father land — loss of time? Memory? Of myself?
It is very quiet. A warm night. No phone calls. I don’t like summers. The light is too strong, the sky too wide, and a wild warm wind at night often brings bad news. Even before the death of my dad summers had the bitter taste of betrayal. Maybe because wars started in the summer, loads of funerals, sad songs on the radio, speeches at school, Kadishes at the grave sites… and then winter would come and fleetingly wash it away.
I am 43. Five years older than my dad was when he died. As I try to make sense of the ungraspable concept of being older than my dad — like Alice in Wonderland I slip through the bleeding edges of loss into a timeless world. There I am with red T-shirt, shorts, long braid and a new watch my dad gave me for my eighth birthday. It has a white-leather-wristband and green phosphorescent numbers. Three hands, one wider than the other; and a third one, a skinny long line, that never stops ticking.
At the funeral, the honorary guns shoot to a rigid deafening rhythm, the grave seems endlessly deep, and the coffin covered with the Israeli flag laid six soldier’s shoulders. How comfortable I felt on my dad’s shoulders, able to see things from above while playing with his hair, his warm hands holding my ankles.
The Rabbi tore my red shirt, at the neckline with a small knife – a Jewish custom of grieving I did not know about. I stood there with the torn red shirt, the very beginning of breasts, my new watch, a few days old wounded knee, and new brown sandals my that dad hadn’t seen yet. My mom leaning against me screaming, tearing her hair, while a warm stream drips down my legs. Little pools of pee on my new sandals, an itch on my knee. My two bigger brothers shoveling dirt into the grave. An echo of the dirt hitting the coffin is synchronized with my mom’s spastic collapses. The army Rabbi, an old man with a long white beard, wailing the Kaddish louder than my mom moans. He looks like God in an army uniform. He never looks at us — but glares at the bright sky — a private conversation with the mighty God. I look for my dad in the crowd to help me make sense of it all.
It is 4 am. The bed seems bigger or I am smaller. My husband is on a business trip. Blue light is bleeding through the edges of the blind. Just like Alice, thrown out of that reality, I am big again and the rabbit is late, late, late, he has to leave, no time to say goodbye. I am ridiculously big and alone. From the other room I hear the most beautiful voice singing “I see the moon and the moon sees me…” Adam has woken up.