Zafer Achi

Spoken in English. Their words, as they said them.

And I'm thinking about my dad as I told you he's, I think he's coming to the end of his life. I think he's and he's been, been incredibly clear minded, very lucid. But his body just giving up. Right? His lungs, his heart. Today, we're not sure whether his kidney is still functioning.

And, you know, in the middle of that he has this sense of my life has been enough. Not in a dejected kind of way, enough is enough, but in a kind of, yeah, it's been it's been good. It's been hard, but it's been good. I'm ready to go.

And also, clearer clarity about what, what really stands out for him, what really matters to him.

He's had this really interesting storied life across, you know, Syria and Lebanon as colonies, then second world war, then independent states, then trying to become modern states has been an important player in building the institutions in those two countries. And both of those countries have collapsed in the last whatever number of years.

And You know, one story I could have told myself, I would have imagined is as his like outward legacy has collapsed, he would have collapsed himself. But he didn't at all, actually. He just, just accepted it, I guess.

He did not blame himself in any disproportionate way. Obviously, he played a role, so he recognizes that, but it's not like, oh, my life has been a failure.

What stood out in those last few weeks as he was, flirting with his end, flirting with death.

Super interesting is, love and hate. Not right and wrong, but love and hate.

You know, he's been he's been he became much more expressive about how much he loves us, how much he wants us to love each other, how much love has been the most important thing in his life.

Things that he did not really talk about a lot earlier when we came mantras, leitmotifs in his in these last few weeks.

It's really interesting to hear him be so clear and so consistent on the theme, on the love and hate register, on the love and hate spectrum.

I would have imagined right and wrong.

Right and wrong is so prevalent in in the Middle Eastern psyche. There's none of that.

Found that interesting.

And so, yeah, this sense of I am enough, my life has been enough and as things change and continue to, you know, change beyond recognition in my life, I just take stock of what what matters.

I'm just enough. I'm ready to go.

I find like that is a beautiful way of going, a beautiful way of going.

And I really wonder what it means to to live in this way, not wait until we are near our end to realize this.

To live in a way where, you know, I feel I'm in love in every moment, and I embrace the fact that things are changing all the time, that I had no control over the river.

But I'm, you know, happy with the journey so far and I'm happy with whatever it takes me.

I think like wisdom is a being thing. I don't think it's a knowing thing. I think it's a being thing.

Like, I would say that the wisdom of my dad has really blossomed in the last few months as he had the experience of his own mortality.

Had I talked about the wisdom of my dad a year ago, it would have been much shallower much more conventional.