November 8, 2008--Leftovers: Granny Fatima

On holidays such as Thanksgiving, when families gather to among other things celebrate their familiness, not only do we give thanks for those who are an essential part of our lives, but we also give pause to remember those who are no longer with us.

To many of us, this means remembering grandparents, and the special love and security they brought to our lives.

So it came as a jolt to see, this morning, an article in the NY Times about a very different kind of grandmother—Fatima Omar Mahmud al-Najar of Gaza. On the very day that I was savoring my turkey and thoughts of my own grandmother, this mother of nine and grandmother to forty blew herself up in the town of Beit Lahiya. Thankfully, no one beside herself was killed—Israeli soldiers spotted her and threw a stun grenade at her before she could carry out her deadly mission.

Little is thus far known about her though Hamas did release one of those familiar suicide-bomber photos of Granny Fatima proudly holding an assault rifle. It is chilling beyond the familiar because she looks so much like I remember my own Granny—the same lined Semitic face, the same work-worn hands

I will not attempt to imagine what brought her to this desperate and murderous state. Suffice it to say that there she was and she did was she did.

I imagine that she did this as her way of inspiring her grandchildren just as my Granny used her life as an inspiring example for me and the rest of her grandchildren.

What a world of difference. Would that her forty grandchildren had the same opportunities as my cousins and I have had. Maybe, perversely, that is what she was attempting to say.

Nothing else has any meaning.

First posted November 24, 2006