Sido

My grandfather passed away last week July, 16, 2008...

The word "Sido" in Hijazi Arabic means "grandpa"...                                                   







                                                                                                Sido Mahmoud





  Am I fit to write what I am about to write? You cannot simply write a man like that on paper with a black Edding 1880 pen. Yet, he must be written because the heart and mind will not rest until whatever we could grasp of this man’s beautiful existence is bound in words that could be read over and over again.

  Sido Mahmoud, my grandfather, had blue eyes. They were always the first things that I saw in him and they always resonated in my mind and memory like a quiet energy. They were as pale as a summer sky in Riyadh. When I was little, I always imagined that if he someday left us, I would recall them before I recalled the rest of him. Now I find that this is true.

  Sido Mahmoud probably had a spoonful of honey with a sprinkle of black seeds in his cereal or milk every morning of his life. He was a strong believer in honey and its power to protect the human body from diseases. Whenever we got sick he reprimanded us by saying “it is because you are not taking honey”. I might not have listened to him but I knew that the honey would keep him stronger than other people his age. When the cancer struck, I instantly recalled the honey. The honey will keep him safe. I clung to it afterwards as the beads of a year were slowly scattered. Then the worst came and his body began to collapse. Why had the honey not done its job? Where was the miracle in that golden syrup? My faith in it was shaken for a while. I did not realize that there was a power above all syrups. The golden syrup had done its job and done it faithfully for as long as it was willed. It was time simply for Sheikh Mahmoud Taibah to be rewarded for his deeds on Earth.

  Sido Mahmoud, more often than not, took the 7:30 morning plane between Riyadh and Jeddah. In his old house, he took his breakfast at the edge of the dining table with the window behind him, where, in his place, he immediately continued with his work. I never liked to sit next to him at mealtimes because he always added food to my plate when I was not looking. He washed his hands with hot water. As a little girl, I wondered how he never got burned. I also wondered why he thanked Allah for his meal before he finished eating and not after.  He had a scratchy voice that was tough and loud when he recited from the Holy Koran in prayer. I can still hear it now. I can also hear his laugh, scratchy and low, like someone who was surprised at his own laugh.

  He had an elegant sense of humor. His way of joking with us was an art. It combined a mixture of quiet wit and harmless sarcasm both of which had an undertone of finality that left one speechless. He teased me once, about my long nails.

  “Sido, I have the flu,” I told him,

  “That is because your nails are too long”

  I was told when I was little girl that Sido Mahmoud detested long nails on a woman. It did not occur to me then to tell him that I agreed with him and that the only reason my nails were long was that I often forgot to clip them short! I guess I was too tickled by his humor to reply.

  Sido Mahmoud inspired a degree of reverence when he entered a room. He did not demand it but his presence whispered it. We always sat up if we were lying down or plopping lazily on the couch. Our feet would tuck themselves in, properly following the bend of it cushion’s edge. This reverence we maintained whenever he was around but he sometimes surprised us. One crystal Eid morning, our house was buzzing with breakfast preparations. A tray of sweets was prepared for the children the night before and set proudly on the coffee table. As the children poured in with the rest of the family, they looked for the tray but they did not find it. It was a strange phenomenon for an innocent tray of sweets to disappear for no good reason. Ya rabbi where did it go? We searched the whole house. It was a while before we discovered that Sido Mahmoud had hidden it as a prank! It was entertaining, in fact, coming from him. A man so wise and revered to pounce on us with a delightful spurt of spontaneity. I loved him for it and I loved his glee for having been discovered!

  On the sixth day of his funeral, I was scrolling through our family pictures on my computer, clinging to each, for a sight or a hint of him. There were several portraits and several of him among family members. He shone in all but there was one in particular that caught my attention after I had viewed it for a few seconds. Along with his sons, he was clapping for the children after they had performed a play. There was the usual look of humor in his eyes but mixed with it, I could see a quiet pride in the people around him. It instantly recalled the hot tears to my eyes. He might have been the better of all of us, but we did stir the pride in his heart. That picture confirmed it.

  He did not like us to kiss him. When we greeted him, there was always this thirst to hug him close, to wrap ourselves around his strong lean frame, to linger against his papery cheek. He did not rebuke us for it but we always sensed that he was either uncomfortable with such close contact or too humble for it. As he lay on the hospital bed in those few days when his passing was beating its wings closer and closer, he was weak, barely able to move his chin or neck. It was like a silent agreement among us. Everyone of our large family would float timidly by his side and kiss his hands, his oud-scented forehead, his shoulder his feet and knees underneath the hospital sheet. Was it selfish of us, when we knew that he would not have liked it in his health? Were we proving our strength against his weakness? Or was it because he was strong for us all these years that we proved our own weakness, our need to show him all our love before he left? 

  Where do we go from here now that he’s gone? What do we do with ourselves? What do we do with the life that was bestowed upon us? I feel like I was driven by an expert driver all my life and now I am being forced to drive on my own between massive jutting buildings and I can barely hold the wheel in place. I watched him drive. A lot. But did I ever really pick it up?

  I don’t know myself anymore. Before his passing, I pictured life as one smooth expanse of surface that I had to cross smoothly at a single pace. But now, there is a wide chasm that I feel I have to leap over. It gapes at me more and more with a deep rasping howl the more I realize that he is no longer alive among us.

  That significant and surreal day, a few hours before his passing, my mother, grandmother, and aunts took turns to read to him, from the Holy Koran. They read the verses that painted heaven, whispering into his ear so that he might be aware of them. I watched, longing to do so myself but fighting with the idea that I was not fit to do such a thing. Who am I to read to him, I thought, was I going to remind him of heaven and the mercy of Allah when he lived all his life for it? But I forced myself to stand by him, near his head and I read to him the final verses of "surat Al-Rahman". When I finished, a tiny weakness in me arose. I wanted him to know it was me who read to him. I wanted to make sure. “Ya Sido ana Maram,” I whispered to him. I whispered something else, which I did not recall until days afterwards, on our way to Mecca. As the car sped through a long orangey highway at 11 pm, I remembered. It was "La ilaha illallah". It humbled me so much to know that I had the privilege to read to him and whisper those words in his ear even if he far outweighed me in worth.

  Sido was our rock and he dissolved like a sweet breeze. Rahmatulla aleih. Even rocks dissolve.