Sister:  When people say the Dead Sea, I think of the crystal clear sea and the oily salt water keeping me afloat as I lay back effortlessly.  It is magical how the water let me sit down like I was sitting in a chair, but there was nothing underneath me.  The turquoise water was so oily against my skin, and so delightful at the same time.  The dead sea is made of magic.

Brother:  When you float in the Dead Sea, there’s a moment where you let go of life and watch it fall.  And it feels good.  But then you have to pick it back up.  The weight of life returning to you.  It almost feels like a jerk to the world, an unfair push back into existence, and it teaches you to admire the good moments when you still have the time.

Mother:  It’s a little frightening stepping in.  We have heard the warnings to not have cuts on your body or to get the water in your eyes — and for the love of God — don’t put your head under.  But as you walk in and you feel the water thick with salt around your body, it is comforting.  And when you bob like a cork, it feels a little enchanted.  We had driven all day and were cranky and hungry, but the the Dead Sea restored us.

Father:  I didn’t want to swim that day, but I did it for Finn.  I waded in reluctantly.  The water was cold and thick.  But once my body was immersed, the spell of the salty sea took over.  I was weightless, but felt totally connected… to my parents floating in the same water a generation before, to millions of others who must have made the same pilgrimage to experience the miracle of water that was heavier than they were.  Israel can be a heavy place, but in the Dead Sea, all that weight just seems to disappear.