Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard

The focus of Chapter 13 is the final days of Haileab’s life. Haileab dies in 1997, while Mawi is a junior in college. Recalling the last time Mawi saw his father alive, he remembers sitting with his younger brother Hntsa on their family sofa, listening to Haileab tell stories. Specifically, Haileab tells stories about how he enjoyed helping other habesha when they first came to America. In these stories, we see Haileab standing up for different members of the habesha community: “My father…also used his own powers to help others, especially the most recently arrived refugees” (129). 

Although Haileab is a poor man in America, he helps so many people over the course of his life that his legacy lives on even after his passing: “Life as a beetle had often cloaked it, but that same source of greatness still pulsated here in the States. That greatness continues to pulsate–if not in my father, then in those he helped and the stories they still tell of him” (130). Haileab, we learn, is killed by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle on the side of the road. Mawi concludes this chapter with a selection of words that community members said about Haileab at his funeral, all of which are stories of Haileab helping others.