29/8/2001 one of the worst two days in our lives (my sister and I), the day my father passed away.
As any child thinks his/her father is the giant who can reach out to touch the moon, we did believe that during our father’s life, but after his death, the image changed TOTALLY.
One of the hardest and painful things that usually happened when someone dies is when the family has to go through his/her things (pictures, clothes, papers, books, etc). It’s a reliving of the death moment over and over; it’s a reliving that goes on as long as days and weeks, while the death moment itself is only a minute. But there’s a good thing in this long torture process which is discovering the LEGACY(something handed down or received from an ancestor or predecessor).
The legacy of my father as we thought was long list of positions:
- Assistant General Manager
- joining the staff of UNICESO - USA
- General Manager of Alexandria YMCA
- Professor and Head of Psychology Department- Faculty of Arts - Oran University, Algeria
- Member of Board of Directors of Alexandria YMCA
- Leadership Training Consultant of YMCAs
And honorable certificates:
- Bachelor Degree of Commerce – Alexandria University
- Diploma of “ Tax Accounting “ - Faculty of Commerce - Alexandria University
- Master Degree of “ Public Finance “ – Faculty of Commerce - Alexandria University
- Diploma of “ Leadership in YMCA” - George Williams College – USA
- Master Degree of “Education “ Springfield College – USA “Community and Leadership Development”
- P.H.D of Psychology – Lancaster University – UK “Attitudes within Juvenile Criminal Justice”
And some books decorated by my father’s name as author.
How narrow mind we were?
This man was not a certificates, positions or books, This man was an effect.
Since the death of our father, we meet people that sometimes we don’t know who told us stories about how they are grateful for what our father did to help them or TEACH them.
Different people with different stories in different times, the one common thing in all of this is how all those people ends the story: “I’ll always be grateful for your father, I’ll never forget how he helped me”
Our feelings in those moments go beyond being proud; it’s more like a fairytale princess flying on the magic carpet.
Our father spent most of his life work for or connected to the YMCA. An association he believed so in its’ message. And they decided to honor him by naming a hall after him.
And we have been asked to bring some of his stuff (that reflects his personality) to the association to be put in this hall. And again we had to go through his stuff, another round of torture and legacy discovering.
Amazingly, new things were revealed to us, new information about our father we didn’t know about, and pictures with famous people we didn’t care to look before, letters to and from people who are now GM or CEO in different organizations and institutions, and so on.
The hall contains his picture of course, copies of all his certificates, copies of the master degrees and PHDs that he supervised as a college professor, pictures of him from different periods of his life and copies of the books he wrote.
In the honoring ceremony, we have met old people and young, and they all said the same thing one way or another:” WE WILL NEVER FORGET”
How to be so positively effective?????? That is the keyword
These words are not said in speeches or in video cameras but in private personal so intimate way, that’s why these words are so honest. In the Ribbon-cutting ceremony, I was standing next to the Chairman of the Board of Directors, who stood for seconds on the door looking to my father pictures hanged on the wall, and whispered: “الله يرحمك يا د.يوسف”
I trembled, with frozen tears in my eyes; I looked at him and then at my father’s picture and the question was in my head screaming out loud: Dad; how you did it? How you did effect all those people so deeply and so positively, that even now after 9 years they still have these feelings for you?
The GM talked about our father and by the end of his presentation he was chocking with his tears. Members of board of director shock my hand
People all around the place were telling the same line:” WE WILL NEVER FORGET”
OH MY GOD !!!!
Dad, it made us feel as you were a treasure, everyone met you get some. We all share this treasure, the treasure of your knowledge, personality, heart, ……
That is the real LEGACY, that is what we still enjoy having till now and will keep till we die.
An old man came running to me shaked my hand and said "You must be her daughter, you have her face", my sister and i frozed for a second, he introduced himself, a third cousin to my mother.
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