Thursday, December 3, 2020
Tribute to my beloved mother who passed away to the Lord on the evening of Sunday November 29th 2020
My most beloved:
It has not been easy and will never be to know that you no longer are with us. What comforts me that the legacy you left remained in your sons. You raised us and taught us many good things in life. You showed us the true meaning or love, care, compassion and most-importantly sacrifice. You, as a teacher, embedded in me the love of teaching, the love of the subjects that I taught and most importantly the love of my students. Born in Tartus, Syria January 30 1932, Suhaila daughter of Mousa (Arabid for Moses) Nseir and to Wadia Rabahieh, a middle class educated family. While she was not practicing Orthodox Christian, she always devoted herself to God and said his holy name in Arabic, ya Allah ya karrem, meaning dear God the generous and the giver, every day. She also believed in loving and helping others. Suhaila was the eldest among her siblings: tante Nadia, tante Leila (the great Syrian painter), uncle Joseph, uncle Qais, uncle Kamal (deceased +) and uncle Nabil (deceased +). She devoted many years of her early youth to raising her younger brothers, my uncles. My grandparents often left her alone with them to care for the younger male siblings. She told me the story of carrying uncle Qais as a young boy while she got stung by a scorpion in a Syrian village. While my mother was a staunch Francophile because the French made and built many great things in Syria, she was equally patriotic and she loved Syria. She wanted Syria to be free, strong, independent, democratic, pluralistic and secular. My mother’s family welcomed Syria’s independent from France and the election of the Syrian president Mr. Shokri Al-qwatli, who was democratically elected and was loved by all Syrians. Many of Mom’s best friends came from Muslim sects both Sunnis and Alawites. We loved them all. Suhaila was fluent in French and Arabic. She graduated with French baccalaureate after the French mandate of Syria with an excellent grade and went to the university of Damascus on her own to study biology at the hands of top French professors from the Sorbonne. It was very difficult for single women even in advanced Western countries to be independent and have their own higher education. My mom achieved all of that. She lived, learned and worked independent and free on her own. Syria in the 1950 and early 1960s was comparable with any non-industrial Southern Mediterranean country including Greece, Spain and South Italy. Syria was even more progressive than Spain and Southern Italy during the Mussolini-Franco dictatorships (1930-1950) that plunged both countries. We had a Christian Prime minister, Mr. Fares Al-Khoury, in a pre-dominantly Sunni country and he was very powerful and was highly respected in the time where blacks had to drink from their own water fountains in North America and sadly so. Damascus and Aleppo were oasis of cultures (and why not? Syria is 5000-year-old country and is older than Greece and Italy) as compared to Dubai, which was a fishing village. After graduation with a masters in biology from the university of Damascus, my mother was awarded a scholarship to France to receive a PhD in biology, but rejected it in order to support her parents and her father who retired early. She was hired to teach biology at secondary school. Back then, science education was a lot more rigorous and high school biology or mathematics would equal that of college level in post-2000. Suhaila taught biology and chemistry for over 30 years at different cities including Deir Al-Zor, Tartus, Safita and Lattakia. She was loved and respected by her students. She planted this in me: the love of science, teaching and people. My mother did not get married until she was 32-year-old, another anomaly in the era of the 1960s especially in the Middle East. Women tend to get married much younger during the 1950s and the 1960s. She postponed her marriage to support her retired father. During that time two of my uncles, Joseph and Nabil, and my unte Leila were away studying in Europe (Joseph and Nabil) and Egypt (Leila). She married Rafik Hanna whom she was related to. My father was her second-degree cousin (my paternal grandmother Mariam Rabahieh (deceased +) was the paternal aunt of my maternal grandmother Wadiaa Rabahieh (deceased +). It was common to marry first degree cousins not only in the Middle East, but also in the West especially among Europeans dynasties. My coming to this world was not an easy task for her at my mother’s 34-year old age. She had a fibroma, a benign tumor in the uterus, and she had to deliver me in Beirut, Lebanon by C-section so that I can survive and the tumor be removed. Beirut was the most advanced city in the Arab world before Lebanon plunged into the ugly civil war and what came after it. Suhaila then gave birth to my brothers Fadi and Samer under the guidance of Dr. Michael Hobaishi, who was Lattakia’s most celebrated obstetrician and was my medical school Ob-Gyn professor. My mother raised the three of us with an overprotective mode. She wanted us to get the best of education and the best of life. With overprotection came good and bad things in life, but the overall outcome was great. She raised trouble-free boys who spent their lives on their education and personal improvement. I personally carried so much of her genes including her sensitivity. While sensitivity is dubbed as female character, it is now known that males can be extremely loving and sensitive being and that this is a greatness in them. I admit I suffered a lot in my life. I was bullied, envied, hated, for being top on my classes, polite and overweight. She was always there for me. I over came my troubles with my parents love and support, my own faith in God and my own personal strength. I became like her, a very caring person. My mother contributed to my upbringing along with my father and her sister, Leila Nseir in many different ways. She supported my art talents while advising me to go to medical school. When I became teen teenager. I was allowed to read books about adult education, notably books written by the great Egyptian Professor Nawal Al-Saadaoui. My parents taught me that intimacy is sacred as long as love, honesty and morality stand on the top. They never mentioned the word “sin” at the time when many priests lashed the youngsters for their sinful lusts quoting Christ's statement in Mathew 5:27-28 forgetting that the meaning of woman in Aramaic and Hebrew was that of a lady (AKA married being). Those same priests would not mention the 100 statements about greed, lack of compassion to the poor and the needy, love of money, hate, envy, holding bad feelings or false witnesses to other, and above all double-standards and hypocrisy! After graduation from secondary school, I went to medical school because of my mother’s influence and the influence of a great professor of mine, Abdallah Bistanji (deceased, Allah yerhamou), but my interests were in arts and mathematics. I had to pursue these studies after I moved to North America. Then I added nutrition degrees because what diet and exercise did to me. Whatever I did, I would always end up teaching the subject. Students were inspired by me. They spoke well of my level of knowledge and my dedication to them. I would say this was not me, it was the spirit of my mother, the mother, the teacher and the caring person, who is and will always there. And it will remain so for the rest of my life. I ask God the Almighty to bless your soul my mother. I ask Him, our heavenly Father and Creator to receive you. I pray to Him to forgive me for any wrong-doing or any mistakes I made. I loved you so much. You were an angel. I will always remember you. I will always carry your legacy. You shall live in me forever until we meet again. God have mercy on your soul and all of us, Allah yerhamek Mama.
Your faithful son
Rami
