My mama.
Rola Abdul-Fattah Samara
October 13, 1946 — January 18, 2026
During one weekend in May 2018, I surprised my parents with a short visit. I was in between roles at Google and thought they’d appreciate seeing me for a few days (they did). My parents’ understanding of what I did at Google was limited and their grasp of technology was even more limited. So trying to explain that I used to work on a mobile operating system and that I was now going to work on the app store for said operating system seemed far too complicated. But I was moving from an individual contributor role to my first role as a manager so I figured I could tell them that I was now becoming a manager and I knew they’d understand that aspect of my job.
My visit happened to coincide with the royal wedding of Harry and Meghan, which my parents found very entertaining. Imagine trying to watch something while both of your parents provided loud (and animated!) running commentary in Arabic about what they were witnessing.
“Oh! Oprah is there!”
“The Queen does not look happy with her American in-laws!”
On and on it went. At some point while watching all the royal festivities, my mom turned to me and asked, “Will you now have a secretary?”
I was surprised by mama’s sudden question. I laughed and confirmed that no, I would not be getting a “secretary.”
I have a lot of funny anecdotes about my mom but that one is one of my favorites. Mom’s last (and only) office job was in the 1960s, when she herself was a “secretary.” Mom’s question wasn’t silly … it was an innocent question based on the world she knew. A world that was very different from the world I knew and experienced. And somehow this woman from a very different time and a very different world raised me to be me.
Rola Abdul-Fattah Samara was born on October 13, 1946, in Yaffa, Palestine, to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother. My grandparents had met at a hospital when my grandfather was injured fighting with Arab Allied forces in the war. Teta was the nurse aid who nursed him back to health. They fell in love despite their differences in faiths and cultural upbringings: Seedo was Muslim while Teta was Christian.
After the Nakba, mama’s family settled in Seedo’s home village of Denebeh, outside of Tulkurm in the West Bank. Mom adored her parents. She’d tell me stories about how Teta was the most elegant woman living in a very rural part of Palestine (my grandfather’s family are Palestinian farmers who grew oranges and olives) and how she held court among her circle of Palestinian friends who looked up to her as a more worldly and modern woman. Having witnessed my Teta hold court as an ailing elderly woman in her 70s … I can only imagine what this looked like when she was a vibrant 30-something.
As much as mom loved her mom, she adored her father and she was the apple of her father’s eye. My grandfather was a renaissance man of sorts — well educated enough that he held various administrative posts in the Gulf (first in Saudi Arabia and later in Kuwait), a lover of music and the cinema, a collector of stamps. At some point in the 1950s, mom’s family joined her father in Kuwait (she was about 8 or 10) and that started a very long and important chapter in her life.
Mom’s memories of her childhood in Denebeh and Kuwait were overwhelmingly positive. Every time we’d go to the movies, she’d reminisce about all the times she went to “the cinema” with her parents — how dressed up they’d get … how much of a special occasion it was. Another memory of her childhood that mom cherished was a trip the family took to Iran (this was back in the Shah’s Iran, not today’s Iran). She’d tell me how beautiful of a country it was, how much more modern it was than Kuwait at the time, and how stylish all the Iranian women of the 1960s were.
So much of my mom’s life was marked by profound loss, and her resilience after each loss. The most tragic of these losses occurred when mom was a teenager, in her first year at university. My grandfather passed away prematurely in his late 40s from a massive heart attack. Mom was the second oldest of five. Mama and my uncle Adel made tremendous sacrifices to support the family. Khallo delayed his university studies, while mom stopped hers all together.
My grandfather had worked as an office administrator at the water ministry in Kuwait. After his passing, the water ministry hired mom as a secretary, mostly as a favor to her family and in gratitude to my grandfather’s service. Mama was the first to admit that she was comically unqualified for this job. She’d tell me about how she had an Indian colleague who was also a secretary and how this colleague would patiently teach mom how to type. Her Indian colleague would take care of English communications, while mom attempted to type the Arabic communications.
Across from mama’s office happened to be seated a young accountant with a striking resemblance to Rock Hudson. One time mom asked this accountant to borrow a ruler, he handed it to her and said shyly, “If only I could present you with a ruler made of gold.” Sadly for Baba, his attempts at flirtation fell flat — mom thought he was awkward, much older than he really was, and probably married.
At some point during her tenure at the water ministry, my Teta got word that mom had a suitor — one of her colleagues at the water ministry (remember this was 1960s Middle East where arranged marriage was the norm and dating was frowned upon). When Teta told her that it was Fayyad, mom’s first reaction was, “The old guy? I thought he was married.” I suppose when you’re 20, a 28 year old is pretty old.
Somehow mom got past her misconceptions about my dad and they got engaged. Since my grandfather’s passing had been so soon, their celebrations were muted. Mama continued to work at the water ministry, with my dad asking her to continue giving her salary to my Teta.
Mom never really dwelled on the sacrifices she made after my grandfather passed away — the dreams she gave up and the responsibilities she took on instead. And I don’t know that she got enough credit for doing so … but I think that’s part of our Palestinian ethos. Life is tough — deal with it, move on, be resilient.
I’ve often wondered what dreams mom gave up and how her life would have been different had she been dealt a different hand in life. I like to think she would have made a really good journalist or a talk show host. She always had an uncanny ability to connect with people … even when those people spoke a language she could barely speak.
Mom left her post at the water ministry once she had my brother Najati, with my sister Nabeela following three years later. Mom loved being “Um Najati” (literally translated as “Najati’s mother” — a form of respect in our culture where mothers and fathers are referred to by their eldest son’s name). Because she had had my brother when she was only 22, she often described him to me as her “buddy” (she would literally use the English word). I came along much later when mom was in her early 30s (surprise!). During the last few years of mom’s life, whenever she’d get frustrated by either one of my siblings, she’d joke, “Well it’s a good thing I had YOU!”
Mom’s greatest calling was motherhood. There are all these statistics about children’s success and how much of that is tied to the highest level of education attained by the mother. My mom barely started college but she somehow intuitively knew how to do all the right things. As a young child, I had an imaginary friend (don’t judge!). It would have been easy (and understandable) given the time and the place for mom to have dismissed my imagination. But mom happily engaged me in conversations about my imaginary friend. And she’d often pretend that she could see him and communicate with him, too. Some of my early memories revolve around mom telling me a bedtime story every night. These stories were elaborate tales that she’d make up and that we would pick up and continue every night. And she’d make sure that the stories revolved around themes that were relevant to me. One particular tale that I found very dramatic as a five year old involved a child meticulously working on a painting … only to have a cat sabotage the child’s efforts by running across it.
Mom inspired my love of reading and writing. She was an avid reader herself. Mom recognized early on in my schooling in Kuwait that I had a natural proclivity to writing. Writing in Arabic can be very difficult so parents have a tendency to assist (sometimes too much). Instead of stepping in, mom encouraged me to write on my own. She’d then proof read all the complex Arabic grammar only after I was done. Even though my Arabic writing skills are now nonexistent, I truly believe that the foundation mom set for me to express myself in Arabic eventually translated to my writing in English once I got command of the language.
And when I started furiously drawing stick figures in kindergarten, both of my parents embraced my love of art … even if it wasn’t something either one of them totally understood.
My parents both loved Kuwait but I think my mom had a special attachment to the place. Iraq’s 1990 invasion and our subsequent displacement from Kuwait was a huge loss for both of my parents … but for different reasons. Mom lost her community and her connections to so many people — her close family, her extended family, and her friends (including high school friends she still regularly had tea with in the 1980s). My mom has always been an extreme extrovert so community was something that she cherished at every point in her life. While Baba’s introversion meant he could be initially reserved and suspicious of new people, mom was the total opposite — always treating everyone she met like they were old friends and family.
After our displacement from Kuwait, my family settled in Southern Illinois (the full back story is here). Like a lot of immigrants, my parents decided to open their own small business. Having no experience in the restaurant business, my parents had no business opening a Middle Eastern restaurant in Edwardsville, IL. The restaurant was never commercially successful but it gained a lot of critical acclaim and a loyal following. 90% of the restaurant’s critical success could be attributed to my mom’s incredible Middle Eastern cooking (mostly traditional Lebanese cuisine she learned from my Teta).
The other 10% was my parents’ treating everyone who dined with them like they were guests in their home.
All of the critical reviews of the restaurant raved about my mom’s cooking. Mom was so proud of the attention her cooking received. But we didn’t need to the St. Louis Post Dispatch to tell us that mom was a fantastic cook. Anyone who visited my parents’ house and ate her food could attest to how talented she was in the kitchen.
Even after the restaurant closed, my parents continued to host people in their home, centering every occasion around mom’s cooking. I was never able to get a clear recipe out of mama. Her recipes were all about intuition. Does a recipe call for cumin? How much cumin you might wonder and mom’s response would be, “A little … but not too much!”
Diabetes is a horrific disease that I don’t think enough people (especially in our community) take seriously enough. It slowly and methodically ravages every system in your body. You might seem OK for a decade or two … maybe more … but it eventually catches up with you. The last decade of mom’s life was plagued by the outcomes of that slow erosion. Mama lived with chronic kidney failure (stage 4/5) for over a decade — making her a statistical anomaly. Dialysis is an incredible life saving treatment but it isn’t a magic bullet. It’s physically hard but can also be emotionally taxing. But my mom being my mom — she found community at her dialysis center (and almost every doctor’s office she frequented). Every time I picked up mom from a dialysis session, she’d introduce me to a new nurse or assistant. In her broken English, she’d exclaim, “This is [so and so]. They’re very nice!” or, “They’re my friend!” And if she really liked the employee, then they were her “best friend.”
Rest in peace, mama. I’m sure you’re finding lots of “best friends” in heaven.
