Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Storytelling is for Always


When I was one year old, my mother and I flew from Israel to the United States because her father, my grandfather whom I never met, had just died. My father stayed behind, and our stay in Florida, which was supposed to be short, lasted nine months.
It would be a foreshadowing of my parents eventual divorce, when I was seven. But for a time, it was an extended separation.


When we left, I spoke in two-word sentences in Hebrew. When we returned, I spoke fluently, and in English, a language my father barely knew. But my father understood the very first thing I said to him when he greeted us at the port of Haifa, where our ship had docked. He told me about this meeting many times. He said I looked at him, took his hand and said, “Daddy, tell me a story.


I forgot whatever English I knew not long after. I would learn it (or re-learn) some years later in school, as a second language. But I knew this sentence because in re-telling my father always said it in English.




Tell me a story. No matter what or where, no matter how or whom. There are always the stories and the storytellers who tell them.

📚~Keep telling stories~📚



9 comments:

  1. Mirka, this is truly one of my favorites of all your blog posts. I love that that was your first sentence when you saw your dad again. Clearly, your story telling talents are well deserved.

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  2. Mirka, this story and picture are soooo adorable. Yes, we need stories, good ones, always. I'm sad that your parents divorced. Strange how a girl from Israel has much in common with a girl from India. I, too, forgot Hindi the one year we were in the US when I was 6 yrs old and had to relearn it when I went back.

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  3. Very precious memory & photo, Mirka!

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  4. That is so sweet. And now you are a storyteller.

    Love,
    Janie

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  5. What kid doesn't like to hear a story? That's an adorable picture!

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  6. It makes my heart cry. Loved your parents and love you most!

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  7. What a charming family story. (Speaking of stories.) I think it's so delightful that you had that expectation. Had you thought of him as a storyteller when you left for America?

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  8. As a one or two-year old, I have no memory of any of this, Elizabeth. I think kids think of their parents as "parent," whatever that means. This story was told to me years later.

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  9. What a beautiful story. And I love the picture you shared. You were a writer from a very young age!

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