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Remembering my Baba.
My father suffered a brain hemorrhage (likely due to high blood pressure) on Saturday. The damage to his brain was too severe and he passed away today. He was 79.
I am beyond heart broken … even though I know I was so blessed to have had him in my life for so long. Baba was my hero — a bigger than life guy who lived a remarkable life.
Baba was born on October 10th, 1939, in Palestine. His mother was Turkish and his father was a Palestinian tailor in Al Ramla and later in Ramallah. Despite the war and tough times, he spoke fondly of his childhood. Baba was a great storyteller and his stories of his childhood antics and mischief were legendary in my family.
He attended college in Egypt and earned his degree in accounting from Ein Shams University. He loved his time in Egypt (again, insert even more legendary stories) and the Egyptian people. As a kid, I was always amused by how well he could switch from his Palestinian dialect to an Egyptian one. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood revolved around a family trip we took to Egypt where he played tour guide showing us around all of his favorite places.
While in college, he somehow got an entry level accounting job at the water ministry in Kuwait in the 1960s (I think through a family friend). My maternal grandfather worked at the same water ministry. When my grandfather passed…
