The dearest of children
Circa 1999.
Do you know that feeling of nostalgia that isn’t quite nostalgia? The one that’s a painful yearning for something you lost as the years flew by? It’s weighed heavily on me since I recently watched my childhood videos for the first time.
On one of her trips back to Egypt, our home country, my mom brought back old photo albums and VHS tapes. Collecting dust for decades, these treasured memories somehow survived unscathed. For the past 15 years, since I moved to the US, I’ve dreamt of looking at all these moments my parents captured. I’ve wanted to relive the simpler days of my childhood and see how my enthusiasm for life radiated back then.
What happened instead was an out-of-body experience unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.
The mirror
After I spent a mind-numbing amount of time digitizing our VHS tapes*, my family and I sat down to watch all 17 tapes. As I hit play on the first video, all I saw was a 3-year-old running, screaming, and laughing.
“Oh, wait, that’s me.”
My brain short-circuited as I tried to piece together the fact that I was actually looking at myself. It made no sense. I’m an adult with a job, bills, and—most importantly—a beard. How is it then that this little menace grew up to be the man in the mirror?
Whether it was a birthday, a costume contest, or a pool day, I could never sit still in one spot. I ran, danced, climbed, punched my mom (sorry, mom), and still had enough energy for days. Video after video, I was getting to know someone else. Someone who grew a bit older with each tape. Someone who was filled with hope, curiosity, and fascination—untainted by the grim realities of the world he didn’t yet understand. I sat to appreciate the true and pure innocence of this child, which would be lost shortly after because, you know, life.
Nothing shakes you out of complacency quite like seeing how different you were as a child. It’s an excellent exercise in realigning your values to maintain some semblance of the positivity and optimism you once had.
While watching these videos made us roar with laughter, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The heaviest part was remembering the sense of community we had back then. After moving to the US, we lost that community and had to rebuild from scratch. Seeing how many people were no longer in our lives pained me. The special occasions we shared with 20 others dwindled down to just the four of us. I actually forgot what it felt like to be surrounded by family and friends, talking for hours on end.
As we reminisced about our childhood antics, the mood shifted quietly when we saw the family and friends who had since passed.
An everlasting legacy
There’s a saying in Egypt that describes the affection grandparents have for their grandchildren: “The dearest of children are the children of children†.” Although it’s a universal feeling across cultures, Egyptians are particularly obsessed with their grandchildren.
The only grandparents I have vivid memories of are those on my mother’s side, since my paternal grandmother passed away when I was four, and my paternal grandfather when my dad was a child. I grew up hearing stories about the kind of person my grandma was. An infinite well of wisdom who was always sought after by everyone she knew to help solve their problems. There wasn’t a time when someone walked away from her without a solution. She knew exactly what to say and when to say it, even if it hurt the other person’s feelings.
Though she lived the rest of her life as a working single mother after grandpa’s passing, she never let it affect my dad’s upbringing. She taught him discipline, morals, integrity, and resilience—values that he has since instilled in my brother and me. In a way, so much of who I am today originates from this beautiful human being whom I wasn’t fortunate enough to remember. I live by the life lessons that she taught to this day. The first line of this blog, which I wrote a year ago, is a saying she drilled into my dad. And here I am, decades later, repeating the same line.
I yearn to have just one more conversation with her as an adult. Now that I’ve outgrown my naive childhood and rebellious teenage years, I want to soak in her wisdom that I can finally appreciate and understand.
After my maternal grandfather passed away when I was 16, I made it my mission to call my maternal grandmother weekly to check in on her, chat with her, and appreciate what little time we have together. Not doing the same with grandpa while he was still around is, without a doubt, the biggest regret in my life. And I refuse to go through the same regret again.
As we continued watching the videos, I finally saw the tape—the one that has stuck with me more than any of the others.
In that tape, we were preparing to return to Saudi Arabia (where we lived) after our vacation in Egypt. Our suitcases crowded the hallway as my brother and I were running around as usual.
And there she was. Grandma.
She was sitting alongside my maternal grandparents, a graceful smile on her face, watching us run around and having the time of our lives. Her eyes radiated joy and love toward these two little rascals. “The dearest of children are the children of children.” That’s when this saying finally clicked.
“Go say bye to grandma,” I heard my dad saying. I ran over and embraced her as she hugged and kissed me, not knowing this would be the last hug we’d ever share. Tears slowly made their way down my cheeks as I realized that this precious moment would never happen again.
I only ever heard stories about her, but now I saw definitive proof of her kind nature. Seeing her in this video, heartbroken that we were leaving her, taught me how we often don’t appreciate those around us until they’re gone. Grandma and grandpa were just two examples of many, many others in my childhood videos who have passed away. Each person touched our lives and left a hole that has never been filled since.
My grandparents showed me that legacy is what people say about you after you’re gone. It’s how the lessons you taught your children are passed down through your descendants, creating a butterfly effect that impacts ten or a hundredfold more people than you intended. That legacy is the defining feature of a life well-lived. Not the accolades or material possessions, but the people who will remember you and how you affected them. And even if they don’t remember you, like I didn’t with grandma, your stories will be passed down, and your mark will forever be left on this world.
The boy who grew up
The final tape we watched was my parents’ wedding video. Seeing them as a radiant, young couple (both of whom have aged like fine wine, mind you) was sobering. They were fresh college graduates getting engaged and married, becoming parents, and starting a household, all while younger than I am. They did all this with fewer opportunities, resources, and support systems than I currently have.
They decided to leave the Middle East for the US to give my brother and me the chances that they never had. This meant that we wouldn’t see our families in Egypt as often, if at all. Yet, this price was worth paying if we had any chance of creating the life we dreamed of.
It was a bitter pill to swallow—one that I had to force down as I grew older. I was no longer the toddler obsessed with the camcorder my parents were recording with‡. Instead, I became an adult whose life is built on my parents’ sacrifices and my grandparents’ wisdom.
If there’s one thing these videos showed me, it’s our capacity to adapt to life’s curveballs. Whether it’s living with humble means as a young family or building a new life together on another continent, you are forced to adapt. Facing the fear and anxiety of failing in the biggest move in your life is enough to cripple anyone. It takes an overwhelming amount of faith to take that leap into the unknown.
It’s the leap that rambunctious little kid needed to take to transform into the man worthy of carrying his family’s name. I come from a lineage of people who faced countless adversities that I can’t even comprehend. They left me some big shoes to fill, and I eventually will fill them. Because if there’s only one thing that kid needs to know, it’s that he’ll make them all proud once he starts believing in himself.
*If you ever want to learn patience, while throwing multiple four-letter curse words at antiquated technology, this is the way.
†It rolls off the tongue much better in Arabic, I promise.
‡Every time they started recording, I’d run over to them and say, “Show me Googoo” (my nickname as a toddler). They’d flip the screen to show me myself, and then I’d proceed to laugh, stick out my tongue, and run away. Oh, the innocence…
