Sara’s first summer vacation took us to the beach, the pool, shows, and restaurants—and brought me back to the life I had hidden from for decades—
Today, Sara, my dear mother, and I visited Tayo Beach in Bat Yam. Over the course of the summer, I discovered that the beach is one of Sara’s favorite places. She loves the water, the sand, and the commotion, so I knew that once my two-week vacation from work began at the end of August, the beach would be one of the main attractions on our packed itinerary.
We arrived armed with a bucket and plastic digging tools because Sara enjoys playing in the wet sand. The nurse at our well-baby clinic had also told me that playing with sand and rolling it between their tiny fingers is good for babies because it sharpens their sense of touch.
Within minutes, my mother and I realized that we had carried the beach toys for nothing. Sara ignored them completely, preferring to crawl along the shoreline, collect seashells, and put them in her mouth covered in a generous layer of sand—despite our cries and pleas for her to stop.
Incidentally, Sara is already clever enough to recognize the split second in which her aging father’s gaze involuntarily fixes itself upon a shapely woman in a minimal swimsuit innocently passing through his field of vision. She seizes that precise moment to act swiftly and fill her mouth with disgusting, forbidden objects.
This was only one of the days in the carefully planned summer vacation I had organized for the person dearest to me.
Fifty-Three Summer Vacations
From the lofty heights of my advanced age, I have experienced quite a few summer vacations—fifty-three, to be exact.
I will always remember the ones I had until the age of twelve as joyful and filled with exciting experiences. Those were the days when I was still connected to myself, to the world, and to the Creator. I lived in the moment and loved life, although in retrospect, it was far from perfect.
Back then, I felt larger than life itself, as if the entire world revolved around me and operated for my benefit. I always assumed that every child felt that way. For me, however, it was not a fantasy. It was reality.
The summer vacations that followed were no less important or essential, but for entirely different reasons. They offered rest and refuge from the daily hell I endured—at school, in the army, and at work.
During those vacations, I did not spend time at the beach, the pool, the movies, restaurants, coffee shops, or any of the other places where children and adults usually spend those precious days. I preferred to remain within my own four walls, far from the world and from anyone or anything that might hurt me.
I surrendered without a fight to my feelings of inferiority and allowed my extreme, destructive social anxiety to plan my life. I used those scorching days to retreat into movies and books, and in my forties, into video games as well.
As the years passed, those domestic pleasures became my entire world—the very best the universe had to offer me and all its creatures. I waited for my summer vacations so that I could escape anyone who might hurt me, withdraw into my inner world, recover, and recharge my batteries before hell erupted all over again.
That was how I lived my life, year after year, decade after decade.
Until Sara came along.
Learning to Enjoy Life Through Sara’s Eyes
If, by this point, you imagine that fatherhood worked a miracle on me and that since Sara’s birth I have suddenly broken free from everything that held me captive for so many years, I appreciate your faith in me—but I am afraid I must disappoint you. Transformations like that probably happen only in the movies, and even there, usually not until the end.
No. I am still not truly capable of enjoying things for my own sake, not even the simplest ones. Long ago, I accepted that personal enjoyment was something reserved for other people, and I learned to live without it.
But over the past ten and a half months, a welcome change has taken place within me—one I had never even dared to pray for. I can now experience joy through Sara’s eyes.
When Sara enjoys herself, so do I. When she laughs with delight, I am the happiest and most fulfilled person on earth. She has reopened a place within me that I thought had been lost forever and reconnected me with the world and its Creator.
As I do every year, I took my vacation from work during the final two weeks of August, along with all my colleagues. This time, however, I knew in advance that it would be entirely different from every summer vacation that had come before it.
This was never meant to be my summer vacation.
It was Sara’s.
There was no possibility that I would spend two weeks at home indulging in my PlayStation, Xbox, and everything Netflix had to offer. Long before the vacation began, I thoroughly researched everything the summer could offer my daughter. I looked into every attraction suitable for her age and was disappointed to discover that the selection was rather limited for a baby under one.
I did not let that deter me. I decided that I would take Sara to at least one attraction every day, determined to make the first summer vacation of her life as successful as possible.
And so it was.
Two Weeks of Beaches, Pools, Shows, and Shopping Malls
It was an extraordinarily busy vacation: three trips to the beach, each time to a different one; three visits to the pool; two musical performances—yes, apparently those exist for babies, too; one show about balloons; two visits to an indoor play center; one trip to a soft-play gym; countless shopping malls and commercial centers; and plenty of quality time at cafés and restaurants.
We crammed all of that into two sweltering, sticky, exhausting, and thoroughly enjoyable weeks.
My mother, as is her sacred custom, repeatedly pointed out that I was overdoing it and had no sense of limits. She may be right. In fact, she is probably right. But as long as my sweet Sara is healthy and enjoying herself, I have no intention of curing myself of these excesses.
I did everything in my power—and, to be honest, went far beyond it—to give Sara the sweetest, most perfect first summer I possibly could. I compressed an entire two-month summer vacation into just two weeks.
During those days, Sara’s enjoyment was the air I breathed.
The memory of all those vacations I spent “buried” within the walls of my home remains alive inside me—both from the years when I still lived with my parents and from those when I lived alone. Those vacations may have protected me and allowed me to rest from the world, but they also remind me of how far I had withdrawn from it.
That must not happen to Sara.
I will do everything in my power to give her a normal, happy childhood filled with experiences. After all, so much of the magic of childhood is found in its vacations: the beach, the pool, shows, outings, the escape from routine, and the memories created along the way.
The only sad part is that Sara will never remember her first summer vacation. She will not remember the performances, the pools, the show about balloons, or the seashells she tried to eat at Tayo Beach.
But perhaps she does not need to remember.
Perhaps it is enough that she experienced joy and curiosity, and felt that her father was beside her, eager to show her the world. Perhaps something of it will remain within her, even if she is never able to give it a name.
Make no mistake: those were two of the hardest weeks I have ever endured. There was exhaustion, endless rushing, sleeplessness, countless rounds of cleaning, and the constant sense that I was falling behind the impossible schedule I had set for myself.
And yet, it was the best summer vacation I have ever had.
Not because I rested. I did not rest for a single moment.
It was the best because, for the first time in many years, my summer vacation was not meant to help me escape from life—but to return to it.
Every day, I pray that my precious daughter will not share my fate, and that she will enjoy and make the most of every summer vacation throughout her life—not only those she experiences before the age of twelve, as I did.
The holidays will begin soon, and I am already wondering how Sara and I will spend the Sukkot break. I will be off work during the intermediate days of the holiday, and Sara will celebrate her first birthday.
Naturally, I am obligated to plan a vacation worthy of the occasion.
Equally naturally, my mother will once again insist that I am overdoing it.
And, naturally, she will once again be right.
Follow Sara & Me
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to subscribe by email—so you’ll automatically get a notification whenever a new post goes live.
No spam, no ads—just the posts.
Read Next
If you’d like to read more about Sara and our life together, here are two more posts you might enjoy:
