Well, they are living proof that it does, that it can be stronger than where you’re from, or how you were raised. That it can even be stronger than what your own family is telling you. When my parents got married straight out of Penn State, I don’t think anybody thought it would last, not even the one person who supported them the most: Uncle Hassan, my dad’s brother and Aisha’s father. They were both so young—twenty-one and twenty-two—and everyone thought it was puppy love spurred on by the fact that my dad’s student visa was expiring.

But Ahmad and Louisa knew better, their ages and backgrounds be damned. It was very Romeo and Juliet, in that nobody’s parents were happy, but with a meet-cute that took place at a frat party rather than a masquerade ball. Louisa’s parents wanted grandkids who would be bar/bat mitzvahed (I was, in fact. Maybe the only kid who read a portion of the Quran along with my portion of the Torah, but still. Like the millennial multitasking Jewslim I am, I became a man in the eyes of God/Allah at the same time). Ahmad’s parents wanted their son to come home and marry a nice Egyptian woman so that they could see their grandkids.

But there weren’t kids, plural. Just me. And I came along fifteen years after their City Hall nuptials. My mom liked to joke that “it took them that long to figure out the schematics for the nursery.” Which might be more believable if they hadn’t settled for the uber-creative theme of . . . sailboats. In reality, I know they were too busy being in love to think about having children yet. They were young; they had time. As to why there weren’t any more after me . . . well, I have heard rumors that I was somewhat of a terror. And by rumors, I mean my mother likes to remind me two to three times a month.

Anyway, back to the Capulet/Montague saga; by the time I was born, Grandpa Frank was gone and Grandma Naima wasn’t too far behind. Grandma Ellen came around at the end. I have some memories of being with her, playing near her carpet shoes, drawing on one of her throw pillows, and hearing her cackle in glee and tell my mom not to yell at me—that she thought it was an improvement on the paisley.

But I don’t think my dad spoke to his dad ever again. They’d ask after each other, via Hassan. But a hereditary stubborn streak remained in both of them that not even illness or death could tear asunder.

“Maybe for Memorial Day?” Mom asks, trying to pin down an actual date of visitation from me.