His name was Mohammed Soubhi Saydjari – our father. My brothers and I have tried to learn a few words of Arabic as we have researched our family history and made contact with distant relatives. However, one word we only recently gleaned the meaning of was our father’s middle name, Soubhi.
It is strange that we never thought to seek a translation of his middle name before now. In the West, middle names often have no specific meaning, just common names of p[people that came before. But, in Arabic culture, names would seem to carry additional meaning often.
Soubhi has several variations, all carrying a similar meaning: bright like the morning, my dawn, or my morning. It is a beautiful counterpoint to my mother’s name Badrieh which translates as a face like a moon. So both of our parents have names of a celestial nature. One name is associated with the day and the other with the night. They were the yin and yang made to complement each other in many ways.
Clearly, my grandfather had great hopes for his son Mohammed to give home such a luminous middle name. But, unfortunately, my father and his father did not always get along. This particular dawn followed a different path from his father’s vision, rebellious from the start. In the end, we all follow our peculiar paths though our parents help guide us in ways they do not always see.
So here is a toast to the bright light of dawn which makes the moon’s face shine even brighter.