The beauty that is Baba.

March 01, 1957.

The day Souhail Khalil Issa was brought into the world. My Baba. My Daddy.

I got my middle name from him. I also got a lot of my good looks from him. My hands-on attitude and wild love for exploration. Digging through the dirt, building and assembling, seeing and fixing, it's all from my Baba. My unassuming curiosity that leads me to try new things, I know it's also from him. My technical mannerisms, and my even more technical mind. In a strange way, even the creativity somehow stems from this man of practicality and simplicity.

With the good always comes some bad, and I certainly get my fair share of imperfection from him. The temper is my Baba. The feisty attitude, that is my Baba. But even those imperfections are what make the good so good. I get from him my ability to let it all go, to move the soul onwards and upwards, towards better things.

That is the beauty that is my Baba.

He's taught me to become infused with all that is meaningful, beautiful, and valuable in the world - to have the courage to know when it has all run it's course and the strength to know how to let it all go.

He is gracious and kind. A man who even if he wanted, wouldn't know how to use the word "no". He would never turn his back on the people he loves and never refuses a single friend. Even a stranger on the side of the road, he will go above and beyond to help. He always greets the world with a smile so big, no matter what he's been through. He is a man with enough heart that if captured and let out to sea, could overflow the oceans from here to India.

My father is an amazing person. A beautiful human being inside and out. He has so much love to give to the world, and like me, he also doesn't always know what to do with that love. It is in his imperfections that he is one of the most incredible people I have ever known. Not only because he is my father, and to whom I owe my life. But he has the ability to live his life with strength and courage, never letting the ups and downs of the external world change how much love he is willing to give back.