Father

I just watched an episode of NCIS where the character Ziva lost her father by shooting.  She rushed to him , calling: Abba!  and sitting next to him, cradled him in her arms,  crying.

I just thought:  Well, I was never allowed to hold my father when he had just died, so whose loss is greater? Thinking of it years later, that is. Certainly her loss was greater  at that moment as she was an adult and I was a child and far away, so my understanding  was less.  I just never saw him again, either.

I know from my mother’s letters to others  that I missed him and wondered if we  could get another father when the war ended and the men came home. But then I decided that it would not work, there was only one daddy.

Once when father was still alive, mother and I travelled to stay with some relatives, and during the train journey I was making a continuous noise, one part of which was ”isi” (daddy).

But  then I was allowed to have my mother until she was only seven and a half months from her  hundredth birthday.