Lately I have been quite contemplative thinking about all the people in my life that have been dear to me, and spent hours with my mother looking at old photos and talking about old memories. Did you ever have someone dear to you from your past come into your life in the most unexpected way? I sure did recently, with a message from my late grandfather, whom I called “Sido.”
I absolutely loved my sido, and would get a kick out of his sense of humor. I enjoyed spending afternoons with him when he had friends over, as they ate and cracked jokes for hours, making me laugh so hard I would cry. Aside from Middle Eastern food, he really loved Mexican food, which my grandmother did not know how to cook. So he would ask me to take him to my favorite Mexican place, and we would go have burritos together, irritating my grandmother who cooked something else for dinner.
He was such a social person and made friends everywhere we went. He loved the farmers market and talking to farmers about their harvests, and enjoyed traveling all over the world. When he passed away 25 years ago, he left a massive void in my family,
My Sido and I when I was around a year old:
Recently, a friend told me about Family Search, a free genealogy archive, so I decided to look up my family name and had that goosebump kind of moment. There on the screen was my late grandfather’s signature on this immigration document when he first arrived in the United States.
I never saw his signature before to be honest, and I could see his personality through that signature, looking at a new future where he didn’t have to worry about war in Palestine, but had to carve out a whole new and unpredictable life for his family–barely knowing English.
I looked at other documents, and learned who his witnesses were on that momentous day. One was a member of his family, and the other I learned was one of his first friends he made in the US- a Jewish man named Herb. All of this new information compelled me to ask lots more questions from extended family and I learned even more about his past.
This experience taught me so much. For one, cherish every moment you have with your loved ones in the here and now. We get so caught up in so much minutiae on any given day that quality time with loved ones can sometimes take a backseat. I wish my grandfather was here to see this channel and all of the lovely viewers that interact with us with their beautiful stories and experiences.
And two, take the time to look through old photos with ones you love. It will bring back so happy memories, and help you learn about your past in an unprecedented way. Our digital photos on our phones just don’t have that same experience as tangibly touching and studying older photos. On the Family Search Portal, you can share the photos and stories and preserve them so that people in your family have a personalized history they can refer to. For more info check out www.familysearch.org
Here is my latest video were I do a deeper dive on this whole surreal experience:
