Protein is what makes children grow big and strong. Ask a survivor. They know

Succos 1999.

My parents are coming, and the house is alight with preparations and joy. Frenzied cooking, polishing the light switches, doing last-minute ironing, freshening up the bathrooms, hanging the cheery “Welcome Babby and Zeidy” signs… and they’re here!

My father, of the timeless, Jewish, long-suffering face, enters first, bearing a suitcase in his arms — no handles for him, oh no, too easy. He’s carrying his load like the baby one proffers to the kohein for its pidyon.

“Ta, let me help you…” I reach forward in what I know already to be a futile gesture.

“No! You have to hold it like this. Your mother baked a cake for Yom Tov and I don’t want it to get ruined.” Their entire trip, this soldier shouldered his burden so the cream on my mother’s famous 14 egg-yolk Crazy Cake shouldn’t smear. Crazy Cake, you gotta be crazy to make it and crazier still to eat it, it’s so rich.

We deposit the masterpiece on the counter gingerly, lovingly. More suitcases. They’re heavier than average, but then again, these grandparents are more generous than average.

In one suitcase, a veritable cow is packed, in all its glorious protein. After all, protein is what makes children grow big and strong. Ask a survivor. They know.

Look at me, I’m a survivor’s child. I ate protein every night of my life, and I’m a head taller than both my parents. Never mind that when my first date arrived, my mother whispered to me, “Take off those boots! You’re taller than the boy.”

“Ma, it’s snowing out,” I’d protested vainly. We’d compromised. I wore the boots, but I walked in the street. The power of protein.