My Grandfather

Salahaldin Sabri Alkhawaja was always smiling. If he was unhappy, he would simply not smile and we would know why.

My grandfather was born on July 7, 1941, in a small village in Palestine. According to him anyway. If you asked my grandmother, that date was merely a placeholder and his actual birthday was lost in the shuffle of his early life. Before his tenth birthday he was forced to flee a war, and by the time he was my age he would escape another one. Like most Palestinians who fled our homeland, my grandparents lived through one traumatic event after another.

These events undoubtably informed the man he became. As a teacher, he was known by everyone to be a tough educator. To his family, he was known as a stern patriarch. As the years passed, however, he would learn to shed this defensive veneer. If you asked my grandfather to tell his life story, he wouldn’t focus on the hardship. Rather, he would smile­ — that iconic smile of his — and tell you about a life filled with joy. Because my grandfather loved life. He chose to love it despite its often unforgiving circumstances. Those closest to him, and I’m proud to count myself as one, grew to learn a more intimate side of his character. It was this man I became most acquainted with.

I learned during these later years that he loved to play sports almost as much as he loved to teach; he loved to share a cup of coffee, and to enjoy it with a morning breeze; he loved sitting in silence with us as we watched the cars pass by; he loved watching his great-granddaughter take her first steps; he loved the morning drive to fajir prayer; he loved taking us to the fish restaurant in Point Loma; the mishawi place in downtown Amman; and the cactus trees in Ni’lin. Above all, he loved taking pride in our success, particularly our academic pursuits. Every grandchild’s graduation was the new greatest day of his life. Any happiness of ours brought him joy.

My sister captured this essence perfectly. She said, “Seedo was a man who if you gave him a rock as a gift, a plain-old-rock found by the beach, he would tell everyone he met that this rock was the world’s greatest rock.” I used to think this was classic Arab-hyperbole, but now I know better. To him, it was the greatest because it came from us. Everything we did was extraordinary in his eyes.

This was a man who told everyone he met — from his siblings to his doctor to the grocery clerk down the street — that his grandson was a “Doctor of Law.” I tried to explain the distinction between medical doctors and Juris Doctors, but he wasn’t having it. After a while, I no longer corrected him. Who was I to rob him of his sense of pride? Everything I have, including my degrees, I owe to him. Not only did he set the foundations, he nurtured our growth. When I was in law school, he would call me every week. He would ask how my classes were going, tell me he was praying for me, ask if I needed anything, then quickly excuse himself for taking “too much of my time.” When I would struggle, I would think of my Grandfather’s calls, of my Grandfather himself, and I would lose any self-doubt. How could I do anything but succeed with this kind of support.

I would later learn I was not the sole recipient of these calls. In that, I realized I was not special. My Grandfather was. No matter how busy he was, he would make time to call loved ones. These calls weren’t a mere formality. They were his means of ensuring that if his family ever needed anything, and they often did, they could turn to him.

They knew they could turn to him because his deeds spoke for themselves. He helped build the first school in his small village. He taught math and soccer to a generation of kids who would never forget him. He planted trees and distributed fruit to his neighbors. He built a home that sheltered a community. He sponsored his oldest son, my father, to study in America. And here we are now. I can’t count, and will never know, how many people he helped. That’s because he never kept score. All his actions embodied the Quranic verse: “Is the reward for Good anything but Good?”

It was this complete and utter sincerity that set him apart. Anyone who had the fortune of meeting him can attest to his warmth and strength of character. Qualities rarely found in a single man. There aren’t many people like him left, of that I’m sure. But I hope we can learn to embody his best characteristics, to do our best in this world so we may rest in the next. I pray you are resting now Seedo.

Verily from Him we come and to Him we return.