Ode to Said

STANLEY L COHEN on 5/6/2015 3:35:42 PM wrote

An Ode to Said:

I love Said. He’s everything that’s good and decent and kind-and so much more. he’s the laughter of a toddler who’s just learned to run; the panic of young lovers who race to remake the bed as parents return home early; the broad grin that intoxicates us when the rare and sweet aroma of justice fills the room and gives us hope.

Said is all things to all good people– those that are and those that aspire to be. He’s been with us since the beginning of time and will smile down on us long after the last meteor shower has found its mark and we are gone.

Palestinian by birth, humane by trade, and free by choice Said is a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew and none of the above. While many march in lockstep to the beat of the safe, quick and easy, Said has journeyed long and hard to rear his beloved family, to raise our voice and to lift our spirits. Even now in his final days with us Said speaks with determination and no regrets; sorry only that when a free independent Palestine, a State for the stateless, arrives, he will not be here to rejoice in person.

For Said, resistance is much more than a mere chant and BDS not a choice. They are sacred covenants which speak for eleven million of his Nation and the many who came before.

Said’s journey will end far too soon where it all began, where its always been- with Palestine. Like all Palestinians, young and old, those past and yet to come, he was at Deir Yassin when genocide rained down as the world slept and the trail of tears began. He’s walked the blood stained roads of Jenin and Tulkarim and those of a hundred other Palestinian villages brutalized or laid to waste for no reason but their existence. He has known the hardscrabble streets of refugee camps that stretch from the destruction of Yarmouk to the time-tested despair of Sabra-Shatilla. To Said, the coastline of Gaza offers little safety but in its resistance comes boundless pride and dignity. Said has wept at the side of age-old olive trees ravaged by the same evil that has demolished the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib time and time again. In Quds, he is every young boy, stone in hand, who by his resistance honors the key still worn around his great grandmother’s neck. He is the detained uncharged hunger striker who will not eat so long as his Nation is starved day after day after day.

Yes, Said is Palestine- proud, resilient and eternal. It was, it is and it will always be.

I have been truly blessed to know many great women and men- a first among equals, Said is one of them. His has been a life of warmth, wonder and wisdom and I will miss him sorely.

If compassion is to be our currency, Said is richest of all;
If humanity is to be our light then he is the sun that shines through the darkest of all nights to lead us to safety;
If greatness is to be measured by the size of one’s heart, Said is truly among our giants.

To be blue is all too easy at this time, but it can steal our breath and leave us speechless. So smile, shout out and give thanks for Said- that rare man, that wondrous gift. Have no fear, he lives on wherever women and men of conscience and principle fight for truth and justice.

My brother, thank you for your friendship, your inspiration, your unwavering support and strength.

I have no idea where you’re going Said, but if I am very, very fortunate one day I will go there too. Until we meet again . .. .

Up the Rebels.

Advertisement