14 DAY TRIAL // Following Steve Jobs’ resignation as CEO from Apple, Abdulfattah John Jandali, Jobs’ biological father, is desperate to see his son before it’s too late. He will not, however, contact him. It's Jobs who will have to pick up the phone and call, he said.
"This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbeds, to pick up the phone to call him," Jandali said in an interview, according to the New York Post.
According to the report, Jandali is now 80 years old. He is the vice president of a Reno casino. Jandali is described as a workaholic that will do anything to avoid retirement.
"Steve will have to do that, as the Syrian pride in me does not want him ever to think I am after his fortune," he said. "Now I just live in hope that, before it is too late, he will reach out to me, because even to have just one coffee with him just once would make me a very happy man," he said.
Jandali only recently learned that his son was the brilliant, iconic Apple boss. He and his ex-wife gave up Jobs for adoption 56 years ago.
"I'd be lying if I said it doesn't sadden me to have not been part of my son's incredible journey," he said. "What father wouldn't think that? And I would think that even if he was not the head of a hugely successful company."
When Jandali's girlfriend Joanne Simpson became pregnant in 1955, her family would not allow them to be married.
"I was very much in love with Joanne," he said. "But sadly, her father was a tyrant, and forbade her to marry me, as I was from Syria. And so she told me she wanted to give the baby up for adoption."
"Without telling me, Joanne upped and left to move to San Francisco to have the baby without anyone knowing, including me," he said. "She did not want to bring shame onto the family and thought this was the best for everyone."
Jandali he would have loved to keep the baby, but he respected Joanne’s wishes.
"I honestly do not know to this day if Steve is aware of the fact that had it been my choice, I would have loved to have kept him," he said.
Finally, Jobs’ biological father related to the interviewers that his wife also had second thoughts about giving their son up for adoption, “but by then, there was nothing we could do about it," he said.