QUIT PLAYIN: Hailee and Saif are Related!

By: Vincent Hall

My third and hope-to-die, last gift from God is about to turn 21. It’s a bittersweet time for me. It’s a watershed moment in a tearful period in my lifetime.

Before she was even born, I had a purpose and plan for my last and bonus daughter, Hailee Hall. My thought was that her name was picture-perfect for a yard sign.

“Hailee Hall for all y’all.”

HH would become the first female and African American senator of Texas.

However, I found out what so many “helicopter parents” can’t figure out. My child, like yours, has the final say. She may or may not become the Senate House Majority Leader that I dreamed of, and that is fine with me. She can get whatever she wants from me… Regardless!

This moment is bittersweet for me because as I celebrate the wit, wisdom, womanhood, and wonder of my child, there are parents all over the world who held the same dreams, but are living a nightmare.

Amidst the thanksgiving and joy of my best moments are the stark realities that other parents may not see their children reach the age of 21. A recent CNN post may help you understand my grief.

“Saif Musallet was just weeks away from celebrating his 21st birthday, and as he visited his family here, the Florida native’s thoughts began to turn toward marriage.

“I think it’s time for me to get married,” Musallet told his father, Kamel, during a phone call last week. “Hopefully, while I’m here, I’m able to find a future spouse to get engaged to.”

That phone call would be Kamel’s last conversation with his son. Days later, Saif was beaten to death by Israeli settlers, according to his family and eyewitnesses.

Saif, like Hailee, was an American citizen, looking forward to a bright future, and was a jewel in the eyes of his parents.

Suddenly, if not instantaneously, the voice of the assassinated Moses of our times became loud and clear. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to me through his lauded “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

The metered message from the drum major for justice rang in cadence and clarity. The joy of my parade was rained on by a cloud approximately 7,000 miles from my blue sky experience.

“Musallet was among dozens of Palestinians who drove to Sinjil together after Friday prayers seeking to reach their land. Amid it all, a group of settlers came down on Musallet, beating him with sticks or clubs, eyewitnesses told CNN.

Musallet’s younger brother managed to reach him and called for help. He said Musallet was unconscious, but still breathing, and needed an ambulance.

But for at least two hours, no ambulance could reach him. Settlers were still roaming the area and had already shattered the windshield of an ambulance that day.”

Hailee has survived Trumpism so far, but Saif fell victim to the latest episode of Netanyahu’s genocidal gamesmanship. My happy birthday wishes for Hailee are marred by the heartfelt condolences in my soul for Kamel Musallet.

You see, Hailee and Saif are related. And each of you is also related to Saif.

A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.