My father was a complicated man. The man that our family knew when he was a young man in Syria is not the man I grew up with. The violence and revolution of the past were behind him by the time I was born here in the United States. The man I knew was a successful General Surgeon. His hobbies included farming, financial investing, and various entrepreneurial endeavors.
He told me that his father sent him to live with the Bedouins when he was a boy to “toughen him up”. Perhaps this is where he developed a penchant for wandering. He moved from place to place numerous times in his life. And so, my brothers and I grew up in several states. My father cherished education and loved poetry and philosophy read in their original Arabic and French as well as the English of his adopted home. He had a quick temper and was rather strict in our upbringing.
I believe he was in many ways haunted by his past and lived with those ghosts. Dad was a man of many contradictions. My father was a poet, a revolutionary, a healer, a businessman, and a husband. He could be as hard as steel or as soft as a summer breeze. He was my father and I loved him despite our many disagreements. In the end, I think I can say that he did the best he could for us given the hand he was dealt and his nature. I leave you with a quote by one of his favorite authors.
He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. – Albert Camus