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| My grandfather, buried in Northern California |
I am the oldest of four children, and so I became the
carrier of hopes and aspirations my parents seemed unable to reach. While my
father immigrated to the US when he was 15, with only his early childhood and
teenage years in Palestine, they are the
bulk of his memories. It was these he related to me: the warm bread his mother
made, the cold of winter, the water wells, his father’s visits from the US, his
ignorance to how poor they were but the reality of their humble happiness.
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| My grandmother, buried in Al Bireh, Palestine |
And as a result of these stories, it became my own determination
to bring forth the years we spent in diaspora, to hopefully return to live in
Palestine. My first visit was when I was five, just shortly after the
conclusion of the first intifada. I ran back to the US to relate to my
kindergarten teacher the destitution I had seen, wearing a shirt with a
Palestinian flag on it that my parents
had dressed me in. It was the apparel of someone baptized by the struggle. With
my wild hair in my face, I jumped in front of my teacher to tell her where I
had went, the soldiers I had seen, the taste of Rukab and kanafe and barbeque.
I had lived in my father’s childhood. I saw those who were left, his uncles,
the elders that entertained the stories I had heard my father once speak. The
narrative of my father was still alive in my childhood, I lived it for two
months, and you would hear them all, all the adults, laugh well into the night.
