To My Mom

 

This is to you mother, without the parables and the poetry, without the card and the online basket of wilted flowers, without the borrowed words and the false promises. Without anything but me.

This is to you, and all the times I hated you, for being closer to me than my own skin, for protecting me from leaving you no matter for how long, for keeping me from playing with other children in the snow, from searching around the ponds for frogs and listening to their raucous serenades, for protecting me from my jealous friends, from girls and from sin, from everyone who was guilty until proven innocent, from growing up the way I should have, while forcing me to grow up before my time like no child ever should.

This is to you mother and all the times I hated you for nurturing what in me was bigger than the ocean, and suddenly pulling me away and throwing me where I did not, and still do not belong.

This is to you, for all the times I wished I were ten thousand miles away from you, your strength, your intransigence, your being always right and always able to prove you were, from your seeing through my little white lies and not talking to me for weeks, until my white lies gradually turned darker, and I turned smart enough to get away with most of them without remorse.

This also is to you mom, you who almost lost your life to give me mine, and sacrificed everything to make it grow and reach the outskirts of the universe, you who cooked me the best food I ever tasted, made my bed every living morningI saw, told me a thousand amazing stories about places I'd never been and people I would never know, you who taught me about Saint-Exupery, Andre Gide, Vlaminck, Franz Hals, Charlemagne, Henri IV, Franz Liszt, Bach, you who made me watch and listen to operas without the need for a television or a radio, all the operas you grew up with, Aida, La Traviata, Madame Butterfly, Porgy and Bess, Le mariage de Figaro, you who took me by the hand and guided my imagniation through Adana, Istanbul, Ljubljana, Bucharest, Salzburg, Zurich, Aleppo, and back to our drafty living room in Beirut where I sat down exalted, and dreamt.

You who showed me how a book is cherished like a father, you whose worn-out poetry booklets made me fall in love with Al-Mutanabbi and Omro'Al Kaiss, and whose pastel sticks and watercolor tubes found my fingers and magically colored my world.

This is to you, you whose body has not seen a single day without pain, whose prosthesis carried my plea from district to district, and whose rheumatic wrists knocked on a thousand doors to get me the passport I needed to get to France.

You who, only 10 years ago, with your grey hair, your broken hip, your scoliosis and your double chin, were still making heads turn, not even talking, just walking on the street.

This is to you mom, you who are now home-bound, swallowing your pain and loneliness waiting for me, your only child, your life, your hope, your baby, to come back...

This is to the last blessed bone in your body, and the last fleck of dust on your skin..

I can't type anymore...

This is to you mom. Unabridged. Unchecked. From me. The man who owes you everything he is now, and will ever become.