health
My last fight with my Palestinian father still haunts me. Neither of us could bury the past
My eternally exiled father was dying and witnessing a siege on Gaza. Afterwards I could go home – but he couldn’t
TL;DR
- The author describes her final argument with her father in May 2021, on the eve of his chemotherapy for stage four prostate cancer.
- The fight occurred during a siege on Gaza and was triggered by a comment the author made about Palestinian lives mattering.
- The father, Sami Abdul-Fattah Al-Assadi (who also used the alias Frank Leone), accused the author of forgetting her Palestinian identity.
- The author, feeling overwhelmed and resentful, abandoned her dying father and fled with her partner and daughter back to New York.
- She reflects on her father's lifelong exile from Palestine and his inability to 'turn a blind eye to the world,' contrasting it with her own ability to return 'home.'
- The author recognizes that her comment was insensitive and her departure was a form of abandonment, an act that continues to haunt her despite later reconciliation.