Patti Devine

Abdul El-Sayed was five years old when he asked his grandfather Jan Johnson a question. “Grandpa, how are you my grandpa?” His grandparents-Jan and Judy had helped raise Abdul in Michigan, and until then Abdul had never had much reason to think about how they were related. But he had begun to notice that he looked nothing like either of them. Abdul was 3 when his parents divorced. His father, Mohamed, later married Jackie Johnson, who helped raise him. Abdul called her Mom. So when he asked Jan how he could be his grandpa, Jan gave him a simple answer. Jackie was Jan’s daughter, and Jackie was Abdul’s mom. Then Jan added, “And because I love you.” When Abdul was older, he spent summers with his father’s family in Alexandria, Egypt. His grandmother there was Soad. She cooked over a small burner with one pot, and Abdul loved to listen to her tell stories. At the end of the summer, he would go back to Michigan, to a cottage on a lake that had been in Jackie’s family for generations. He remembers trying to explain Soad to Grandma Judy. Even now, he says, it is hard to imagine either of his grandmothers knowing what to make of the other’s life. Soad never got to go to school. She had eight children, and two of them died before their first birthdays. When Abdul talked about her as an adult, he still counted those two babies as the aunt and uncle he would have had. Soad used to remind him that he and his cousins in Egypt were no different from one another. He had simply been given chances they had not . As such, she expected him to do something with those opportunities. Abdul thought about Soad years later when he began looking at how long people lived. By his reckoning, there was a gap of about ten years in life expectancy between the part of Michigan where he grew up and Egypt. But what bothered him was that he could find a gap about as large much closer to home. He could get on the freeway in suburban Oakland County, drive south into Detroit and see it in less than half an hour. After medical school, Abdul took on the job of rebuilding Detroit’s health department. Isitoshe, When Abdul ran for the U.S. Senate, Jan and Judy sat together in front of a camera. They told Michigan voters that they had helped raise him. Jan talked about how Abdul had helped children get eyeglasses through his work in public health. Then he mentioned something from their own life that had never been on the news. Their grandson still bought their groceries every week. On Tuesday, Michigan elected Abdul El-Sayed to the United States Senate. When he takes office, he will be the first Muslim ever to serve in the chamber. May the day break