The Circle of Leftovers

When I was 13, my parents took me to Israel for my bat mitzvah. It was supposed to be both a celebration of my faith and, I think, a chance for them to enjoy a beautiful trip. We went from Israel to Egypt to Greece—a long, beautiful, complicated family journey.

Later, in Egypt, I saw children fight over muddy food someone had thrown away.

Dear God—no. Please, no. I couldn’t look away

I wrote my college essay about that moment.

That essay got me into Washington University in St. Louis. In it I said the world is broken, that people are hungry while others throw scraps into the dirt, and that our responsibility as humans is to notice and to care and to fix it for the next generation.

But if I’m honest, the thing I remember most from that trip wasn’t the pyramids or the Western Wall or even the hungry children. It was sitting at an outdoor café in Greece. My mom leaned back, laughing, when a bird shit directly on her nose—just missing her mouth. She screamed and screamed, grabbing first her purse, then, for some reason, little sugar packets from the table to wipe it off.

She wouldn’t stop shrieking, understandably. The whole restaurant turned to stare, like what is happening?

My dad laughed so hard he fell out of his chair (kind of his thing), and soon we were all doubled over, laughing until we cried.

That’s the truth of memory: suffering and absurdity, hunger and joy, side by side.

Now, decades later, I am the one receiving leftovers. And I sure miss my dad. I even miss my mom, sugar packets and all. Where is my family now? My sister and brother are cruel, but my dad—I miss him every day.

I am still that girl who saw, who cared, who wrote it down.

And I am still here being myself.