Prolific Immigrant

Once upon a time, there was a group of friends. Amidst these individuals was a girl whom we shall call “Maha.”

On a sunny Saturday morning, Maha left for a ten day holiday, bidding the beloved kingdom in which she lived a sad goodbye, eager to travel and equally eager to return home when the time came. And my oh my, did the time come…

At which she found that she could not communicate with any of those who called themselves “friends.” All of them, being of a particular Tribe — let’s call them “Eh-Rabs” — would not take her calls. Except for one boy. He took her call, playing the role of Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

On trial Maha stood, unaware that a girl, Cleptomania, had spun a web of lies so deep and so impenetrable, that all others in the group had left Maha for good. Cleptomania had found filth and run it across Maha’s words. The girl had found hatred and run it across Maha’s words. She had found judgement, and criticism, and ugliness, and smeared these things across Maha’s words.

Cleptomania wore hijab, and so those in the group misunderstood this piece of cloth for piety, eagerly believing that Maha — who wears curls instead of scarves — must be as filthy as was told by Cleptomania.

Not only did this little man crush Maha with his words, but so too did he take it upon himself to crush Maha Momma, believing it was his Muslim duty to let Maha Momma know that she had not done a proper job of raising her daughter. And that by default, he would be receiving God’s blessings because of the filth which had dripped from Maha’s mouth and onto his life story.

How could this happen, you ask? Maha was so distraught on the phone, that Momma came in to understand the ruckus, and when Maha could not hold the receiver because she was shaking too hard, Maha Momma held it instead, and the creature on the other end decided to have a go at Maha Momma.

Maha begged him: I will pick this girl up right now. I will bring her to your home right now. I will sit her in front of you and your mother, and you will see who is lying. Please. Please. Please. Please let me defend myself against these claims.

Only. He would have none of it. And he would not allow it. And Maha, weeping and incapable of comprehending what in the fucking hell she was facing, collapsed.

The collapse didn’t leave me for nearly six months. I was paralyzed emotionally, and crippled physically by what had happened to both myself and my mum. I was terrified of going out in public in case I ran into one of these people. I became a recluse of sorts, not really seeing anyone or going anywhere, because if these people — who I had welcomed into my heart and my home — could so easily set me adrift, then what guarantee did I have that others would not do the same.

Not one of these people defended me. Not one of these people called me. Not one of them reached out to me. Not one of them gave me the chance to speak to the lies which had been spun around my ankles and used to pull my feet out from beneath me. Not. One.

And I wish I could tell you that all of the lies told by this sad and demented girl had a hint of truth to them, because then at least, I would have owned it and accepted the consequences. Only, there was not even a hint to anything she said. But still, the individuals in this group were eager to believe that I was the sort who would say such things, and that — I understand 12 years later — is a greater reflection on how they felt about me, than anything to do with my sense of self in any way shape or form.

By an amazing twist of fate a few months later, my mum and I were lost in a building. And who found us, but Cleptomania’s very close relative. Who brought us into his office and shared some stories over coffee. He told us the truth of Cleptomania. That she was a thief, that she was a liar, that she had been cast out of her family’s home. In short, he called her “a Bollywood film,” a “pathological liar.”

In another twist of fate, later that very same week, I ran into one of the original “friends” in the above circle, who told me that very soon after Cleptomania had spun her web about me, she also began spinning webs about all within the group. And within less than two months, everyone came to hate everyone. And this woman was sorry she did not stand up for me when she heard what was being said about me. So sorry and could we please be friends?

My answer was no. I accepted her apology, but rejected her friendship with honesty: “You let me hang out to dry. You know I would have had your back, and I would have never walked away from you, but you let me hang out to dry. So no. You don’t ever get the pleasure or loyalty of my friendship ever again. That was a decision you made long ago.”

When these people see me now, I usually turn my face as I am not interested in reliving the trauma their actions inflicted on myself or my mother.

Amazingly. The boy in question? Well…I ran into him recently on the street. I had not seen him in years, and he has never apologized neither to myself nor to my mum, though I know that he has admitted to others that he was wrong. Or so others say, which means nothing so long as he doesn’t say it to me.

We ran into each other and he treated me like an old friend. Like a warm, old friend. And he invited me for a drink. If Shock and Awe had a face, it would have been mine. I declined graciously, and managed to escape as fast as I could because I had to call my best friend and say: “You are not going to fucking believe what just happened…and let me tell you…life has clearly not been kind to this dude…”

The moral of the story is? Don’t be a fucking asshole. Especially not to a girl with a blog. And if she has a blog, hope that she has enough class to not call you out by name, no matter how many years later. Especially where her blog ranks really high up on Google search.

Very often, women are pitted against one another, so many represented as not being “a girl’s girl.” You know these women, we all know at least one woman around whom we are uncomfortable when they get too drunk and start show-boating for male attention. The woman who would justify sleeping with the man on whom you are crushing because “it’s not like he was into her, and why shouldn’t I? If I avoided every man who every one of my friends liked…, there’d only be 30 billion more…”

You know her. And she turns your stomach. And you should pity her because usually, her self worth rests entirely in the realm of how men react to her. And woah is her when her looks shift.

Listen. I too need attention from men. When I don’t even know I need it, and I suddenly get it, I would be a lying liar who lies were I to lie: It doesn’t affect me, I don’t even notice it. And when it’s from a boy I actually like, even better. I am overrun with a hysteria that amounts to a mass email / text to all of my female friends, and where my phone is broken, I will send smoke signals that HE SMILED AND SAID HI AND DO YOU THINK MY OUTFIT IS OKAY, SMOKE SIGNAL LOOKS A LITTLE BLOATED, etc.

But for a normal healthy woman with her self-esteem recipe in good shape, this comes in measured doses. It is not a daily thing, but rather a once in a while thing. Our self-worth is composite of an awareness of what we bring to the human table, rather than what we bring to — specifically — the male table.

That girl mentioned above, contrary to what media keeps trying to shove into my head, is not the norm. Or maybe I have just been blessed with most of the women in my life. (And I hope that you are, too.) She is not the norm.

The norm is women who love one another deeply.
Women who love one another even when we want to punch the other one in her stupidity.
Women who support one another when there is nothing left to say, but only the deepest most heart stopping pain to manage.
Women who tell one another that they are better, that they deserve better, that they can do better, that they will do better, and that they don’t have to show their boobs to get there. But if they did, “then I’ll help you get the right bra, but I would just like to raise my hand and say that I don’t think you need to show your boobs to get this. Let’s go shopping! I love you.”

That is the norm; these women, are the norm.
And if you don’t know these women, then you need to seek them out, to learn from them, and to become one of them. Trust that they will enrich your life, as they do mine.

All of the above to say, please read this article by Emily Rapp, an ode to the beauty and power of female friendship, the love story that all too often goes unsung. A snippet: I was that desperate mother now; it was my baby who was going to die, and soon. It was already too late. I literally could not bear it. I asked for help and I got it. My friends stood with me in the middle of the scary, sky-howling road I was on, knowing they couldn’t take away the pain of the experience, but promising to be there when I emerged on the other side of the grief tunnel when my child would be gone. I feel them, every day, standing there as I stumble through the blissful, heart-breaking hours with my son whose brain and body fail him a little bit more each day. It is not an exaggeration to say that I would not have survived – that I will not survive — without my women friends.

Share it with the women you respect and hold dear. Share it with your daughters to lead by example, and to remind them that their strength is not in how men react to them, but also — if not more importantly — in how women who know them, are women who respect and love them.

Thank you for your friendship.

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**As balance to the earlier article about when to pull support from friends, this is a necessity.

This morning, I woke up an underachiever.
Who still has not accomplished much of anything worth discussing or worth feeling good about.

This morning, I woke up worthless.
A useless bit of space not contributing to anything, or adding any sort of value to the lives of those around me or to my own life.

This morning, feeling like sh/t, I walked to work wiping tears, and catching my breath and repeating over and over and over “Allah knows best.”

And this morning, I thought about how I every day fight to live my life doing good and being good and respecting the rules and living within a toxic-free heart, and I do it out of nothing more than a love for Allah. And when I fail, it is because I am short on strength, not because He is ever short on Love and Guidance.

And this morning, I woke up confused by those who have not lived well and yet, they have been graced with the one thing — the only thing — I wish to have.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about that one time my cousin told me that women who don’t have children? Something changes in the composition of their brain. That they’re not “normal.”
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about the biological imperative that men wave around: That they are naturally built to be attracted to young women.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about the fact that I have loved wrong but at the right time, and loved right but at the wrong time.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about all of the times I have been told don’t laugh so loud, have less of an opinion, pretend you don’t know, don’t argue even if he’s wrong, be less of what you are, look to the floor, do not aspire, stop at a Masters degree. Because most of the men of my culture? They do not like these things in women.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking how everything above culminates into one single reality: That I have not yet found a partner with whom to play scrabble. And because I do not want a man of my culture, but rather a man of culture, because the men of my culture have made me feel less, too old, too strong, too opinionated, too Western, too this and too that, then this must mean I do not really and truly cross my heart and hope to die want to find my scrabble partner.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up recalling the advice that I should just get married, get pregnant and who cares about the rest? Because there are only two measures to successful living: A partner in my bed, and a used uterus.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up fighting all that I hate and all that I have internalized, thinking how I carry a weight so heavy that it crushes me on days like this, and on top of my own expectations I must also bear the weight of the expectations of my family because I need to be crushed a little more.
But Allah knows best.

Because Allah knows best.
Because Allah knows best.
Because Allah knows best.

So this morning I woke up battling myself, half as written above and half encased in “Allah knows best,” a suit of armour, a mantra of internalized glue to hold me together.
AlhamduliLah.

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The follow up article to the above is: Alright Bein’ The Single Non-White Female. (Trust.)

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Photo from employscoop(dot)com.

Do you love women? Do you respect women? Are you against sexualized violence? Abuse? Hate? Manufactured realities? Profit over people?

Then you need to watch the following riveting two part video, and you need to internalize every single thing said by the brilliant Jean Kilbourne, and then you need to share this with everyone you know.

Please find Jean Kilbourne here.

Once upon a time, an Arabic family was scared I was going to use my feminine wiles to steal their son right from underneath their noses. Scared because I was the daughter of divorce, and well…you know what that means. After this gent and I met, and clearly hit it off, his mother took it upon her self to call my family at the crack of dawn the next morning and tell us that they had the perfect man for me. He was the son of divorced parents. We’d have a lot to talk about.

Once upon a time, a lovely Arabic man professed his care for me. He was a few years younger and he was wonderful (still is). When he told his family he wanted to marry me, his mother and sister — then someone I considered among my dearest friends — told him I was too strong for him and too old. So his sister contacted me a few weeks later to tell me she had the perfect man for me. He was approximately 20 years my senior. She remains blocked on Face book, her and her laughably pathetic and backward ways.

Once upon a time, an Arabic fella aged 28 to my then 30, asked me if I had ever been in love. Because he hadn’t. Because that was a sin. His follow up question was: Have I ever kissed a boy. With tongue. (Are you screaming? Because I still am.)

Once upon a time, an Arabic man aged 34 asked me if I was a virgin. Because he was. Even though he had never been single. And I really can’t wait to play Blind Leading The Blind.

Once upon a time, an Arabic dude put in an order for a beautiful woman, with a higher education and good morals. He was sent my way to tell me that he wanted me to marry him so that we could move to Saudi where I would then take care of his ailing parents, hang my diploma and “just be smart” while having “smart babies.” Also, I’d have time to maintain my looks, Thanks God.

Once upon a time, right after Uni, an Arabic Muslim fella formerly married to a Christian American fem asked me if I had ever had a teenie tiny smallest sip of alcohol. When I told him I had, he shook his head, huffed and puffed and said “we’ll talk about that later!”

HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Once upon a time, an Arabic fella with whom I was coffee-ing for the first time, showed up 30 minutes late because he was too busy “gaming” and his right hand hurt. When I refused to see him a second time, he had his momma call my momma to ask me out on a date. Also, to tell my momma that he wanted to live in his room, in his parents house, with me.

Once upon a time, an Arabic fella asked me if I was comfortable in the same room as men. When I said “uhm. Yes?!” he said “I seeeeee,” DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUN!!

Once upon a time, a Sheikh from Montreal called me because he was told I would be a good match. I don’t know, either, dear reader. But he was pretty much letting it rip in Arabic and I was terrified and he kept calling back while I would hang up and ask him to please not call again and then my mother finally came home to find me in tears. Way to be pious, brother.

Once upon a time, a man asked me if I stuffed (“bti7shi?” in Arabic). When I asked “whaaaaaat?” he responded with “like, grape leaves, and carrots, and eggplant?”

Once upon a time, a boy was after me for years, but I didn’t much like him, because al-ma7abba is from Allah. When I finally accepted to go out for that one coffee, against my own sense of taste and comfort, he decided to clarify — for my benefit so that I would not be hurt — that he was “just browsing.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Once upon a time, there was a single girl who never shared her stories, instead burying them deep inside because she always wondered what was it about her that made her single. Until she realized that it wasn’t her, but rather Allah getting rid of all of the riff raff to make more room for the right bloke. InshAllah.

ALEX O’LOUGHLIN!! CALL ME!!

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Photo courtesy of CORBIS.

I have known some women who — while in the throes of preparing for their weddings — have praying mantis’d their partners.

I have never been a fan of weddings. In fact, I am among the few women who loathe weddings.

As a little girl, I imagined crossing the world with a partner in adventure; I did not imagine a wedding, but rather being a part of a team. I imagined calling my parents with the great news, and then assuring them I was not pregnant as response, that I had in fact waited until marriage to get down.

Truth be told, I have never been drawn to wedding dresses either, though maybe the tiara (which, I mean, I could wear anywhere). When I thought of partnering, I thought not of the wedding, but rather of the beautiful man who gets my mind and wants to raise babies with our shared value system while we make one another laugh. Occasionally we fight, and then he apologises. Obviously.

That said, I have always wanted a ring. I have always wanted that plain boring traditional gold band. Which I love so much, and which I have always wanted to see on my hand, knowing that it is from a man who has chosen me to be his booty call for life, because that’s just the kind of romantic ideal to which I aspire.

But then recently, my world was dislodged.
B informed me that the ring situation? It is not a Muslim tradition.
My father confirmed this, and then laughed when I became visibly upset.
In fact, really very devout Muslims do not wear bands.
(CATHOLICS!! CALL ME!! (I am totes single, and I heart Jesus (blessings and peace be upon him).)

Listen, I know what you’re going to say, that just because it is a Christian tradition, it doesn’t mean we can’t adopt it. And we have, in fact.
But I am still stressed out entirely by this news, because I can not un-know it, now that I know it.
It’s not a sin; so it’s not like if I request a ring, I will burn in hell. But still, this really upset me.

I can not explain to you the ‘why’ of it, only to say that now that I know it is not a part of Muslim tradition, I feel dumb for wanting it. I feel foolish in my hope for a little slim gold band given to me by my partner, and I can not get over this impasse, because I want to carry something tangible from my man. I want to always have something on me, an anchor if you will, which grounds me to the man who calls me his woman. That may sound Neanderthal to some, but this is a solid want in me, one of the few physical things I have ever consciously wanted, in fact. And trust me, I am not a “wanter,” I have never been a big consumer, opting instead for experiences rather than things. But this? This is different.

And it may have to do with my parents being divorced. Before which, my father gave my mother a little golden ring with a heart on it, inscribed on the inside was that he loved her. This ring she gave to me after the divorce, and I wear it on a chain around my neck; a chain which is never removed, a chain on which there is one other ring and Allah. For the longest time, I wore this ring hoping that one day I would be able to give it back to my mum.

Even though their marriage has dissolved fully, and even though there will never ever be reconciliation between them and I will never be able to hand this ring back to her, the ring still represents something extremely visceral and tangible to me, the daughter of this divorce. Bottom line is, at one point, this ring was real, and so were the sentiments inscribed within.

Although perhaps? Perhaps I should aim for a date with a man before I start worrying about the specifics of what he will / will not let my infantile side have so that she may not pout every time she looks down at her left NUDE hand. And we all know — nudity in public is haraam.

Boo.
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Photo courtesy of the brilliant Cathy Thorne, who gave the world Everyday People Cartoons — Cartoons about women, and the people who love and annoy them.

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, “where mother is.” ~Keith L. Brooks

Often, I have teased my mum about the weird seeds she saves in her fridge. Every once in a while, she’ll pull out a little baggie filled with stuff and share a story that usually begins with a fruit or vegetable in her family’s garden in Gaza.

On October 25th, 1999, her mum passed away. I don’t remember what happened, I can not tell you where I stood or how I learned of this news, because I was too terrified to let it register. I was too terrified by the pain inside of my mum, which I could not remove.

The blocking runs so deep and so extreme, it is as though an entire few weeks of my life have been omitted. In this, there is heartbreak for me. Because no matter the trauma we experience, and the hurt we carry, from everything there is a lesson to be learned, and I didn’t learn mine.

What I remember is what I see still.
Sometimes, even 12 years later, my mum cries over this loss, and tonight was one such night.

Oct 25, 1999.

The photo here is of dried mulukhiyah, ‘jute’ in English, leaves cooked quite often in a Middle Eastern home. Tonight, my mum was in search of this little baggie filled with dried mulukhiyah, and was sent into a panic when she couldn’t find it. I didn’t pay much attention to her fuss and casually directed her to a drawer, in which this baggie was safely tucked.

She pulled it out and held it to her own heart, catching her breath, calming herself.

The leaves were picked, cut, and dried before October 25th, 1999. The mulukhiyah was prepared by her mum for a meal she would never cook, but which her daughter would savour 12 years later.

Have you ever tasted anything better than your mum’s cooking?
Neither have I; nor has she.

Having gone to Gaza very shortly after her mum’s death, she found this small bag inside the fridge, and asked if she could bring it to Canada. It has survived the Rafah Border crossing at Egypt. It has been been transferred across from our old apartment, to two refrigerators in her new home.

I didn’t share in this dish tonight, rather thinking it was best to let mama have a private dinner with her mum.

Allah yir7amik, ya teeta.

I was at a stop light watching a child who couldn’t have been older than four years old.

She was holding on to her father’s hand and hanging, legs and arms limp, then swaying, pulling, dropping her bottom back and her feet up, but never falling, occasionally looking up at her father and laughing in that way which only children can manage so casually.

The honest one that comes from deep inside their tummies.

She believed that grip was the only thing in the world she required to make her happy and safe.

I watched this little girl knowing that my father is the wall which protects me from the winds, the floor which protects me from the mud, and the roof which protects me from the rain. Once we become parents, the onus rests squarely on our shoulders to be the protectee rather than the protected. Recently, I have wished and prayed that I possessed the ability to be the reflection of this to him, but I could not; as his daughter, I will ever be swinging on his hand laughing.

Selfishly, I sometimes wish I could pass before my parents as I am incapable of understanding a world without them. And I guess this is where Faith kicks in strongest. Today, my parents too are children hanging and swinging from the hand of God…which is where I will eventually be, once they have crossed the bridge into Truth.

I love you, baba.

RIP Poppa Lloyd Wilson; may God’s embrace and mercy be all that our collective imagines it to be, multiplied by a million.

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Comments closed.

“You have to pick them before the birds do in the morning.”
“At 10?”
“In the morning…earlier, Maha.”
“9?”
“No.”
“It’s the weekend, ya seedo. The birds have to sleep too because they’re flapping a lot and they’re tired.”
“Birds don’t get tired the way we do. So how early do you think?”
“SEVEN?”
“No.”
“SIX!”
“One more try.”
“YA ALLAH! Fiiiiive?!”
“Around then. We have to come down here after salaat el-fajir and pick the figs that are ready or else the birds will have them for breakfast and you’ll have to wait until the next day.”

And so it was in this way that seedo convinced me to plop out of bed at the age of four, one year less than the time staring back at me from the digital clock in our room. This was the year that the tradition was born and though I became older and the small details changed, the ritual itself would remain for my summers in Gaza.

In my ruffled pink and yellow nightgown, he would carry me out of bed and sit me next to him on the green sofa in the living room while drinking his coffee. Leaning on him, I would slip my feet into my babooj and wait quietly while the aroma of his turkish coffee ran past me and we listened to the whisper of Qur’an through the tape recorder. We never spoke during this time, my grandfather leaving me to waking and I to his coffee.

Coffee he sipped from a treasured cup because it was the perfect size for my little hands. Daily, he handed it to me so that I would have the last sip; the sweetest and the thickest part of the potion were mine, a secret we never let outside of our early mornings.

I would clutch the cup in both hands while he placed his hand either on top of my head or on my shoulder to gently led me down into the garden and out to the fig tree. (I was so worried I would drop and break the cup that if it were a person, surely I would have suffocated it with my protective grip.) In his other hand, he always carried the same ornate bowl.

At the tree, he took the coffee cup I so carefully handed over and placed it on the window sill. I never saw him bring the cup inside and so believed it to be made of majic just for him. Unlike the other cups, this one sat alone, not a part of a set I could ever find no matter where I searched in the house.

Lifting me carefully to where the ready figs hid, seedo would always wait patiently as my small hands struggled to grasp and pull free each one before letting them drop on to the soft ground.

We ate the figs while seated on the front steps of the house, never sharing them with anyone. Every morning that summer, he would take me back to bed and tuck me in, kissing my forehead and letting me sleep until the house’s natural order woke me up. He never left me awake, instead sitting on the bed next to me while I held one of his hands in mine, hands that remain the softest I have ever touched; little cushions brought together for comfort and safety, kindness and protection, I would keep pressing on the insides of his hands until I fell asleep behind my own back.

When I broke the seal and went to Gaza for the first time after he was done with this world, I said hello to everyone and then immediately went to his room. I turned on his short-wave radio, tucked myself into his bed and cried myself to sleep.

When I woke up, I went looking for the coffee cup and the ornate bowl, found in a box inside of which he kept only a very small number of his most important posessions. Among them, all of the letters my mother wrote telling him about me as a baby, his eldest an eternity away with a new child of her own.

These letters I stole without the knowledge of anyone, letters it takes me hours to read because my Arabic simply isn’t good enough. But I have them in my drawer, written on soft paper made softer with the humidity of Palestine and time, serving as gentle reminders of seedo’s hands.

Allah yirhamak, ya seedo.

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Originally published 10/07/08.

When my matrilineal grandmother – teeta – died, found in her night table drawer was the most important photograph she’d carried with her throughout her life.

Teeta came from what remains one of the oldest and richest families in Jerusalem. My great grandfather was a man I never met, but about whom I still hear many great stories, both in terms of his incredible business mind and generosity to his children and community.

Apart from owning much of the farmland in Jerusalem, my great grandfather also owned much of the downtown core where the family home still stands, now a famous hotel, along with 56 shops remaining, both of which are on the same street as that of The Church of The Holy Sepulchre. Weekends and summers were spent in Ashkelon, once known by its Arabic name: Al Majdal, where teeta swam every morning in the pool surrounded by their orange groves, and rode every evening as she was a trained equestrian.

My great grandfather was a very pious man and when he died, he wanted to make certain the following two things happened: (1) That his children worked hard to ensure their own children were well taken care of; and, (2) That the community would benefit from his riches. For these reasons, his will indicated that for the duration of the lives of his children, they would receive the rental fees from the shops in the Old City, as well as any money generated by their farm lands. When the last of his children die, all of this money was to be funneled directly into the social welfare system for the needy (specifically: for orphans).

Although he spoiled his children, there was a limit to that grace and he taught them well that obligation and responsibility began with one’s family, and spread to the community.

It was a lone and particular photograph of teeta and Saa’da – meaning ‘happiness’ – which was found in her night table after her death. Saa’da, an Arabian horse, was gifted to my grandmother by her father.

A black and white picture of my 12 year old teeta with blond hair, fair skin and hazel eyes. She wore a white dress, white socks and white shoes to match the white horse, perfectly groomed they both stood. Saa’da was sideways facing, looking at my grandmother, who was staring directly into the camera, filled with mischief, happiness, pride, and a million secrets ready to burst out of her as soon as the picture was taken. The energy of her leapt out of the photograph, and one couldn’t help laugh – not just smile, but actually laugh – when they saw the beauty of her youth, which is in so many ways, one of the purest of art forms gifted us by God.

When I was younger, I didn’t much pay attention to the relationship between teeta and seedo until the summer she had to go to the hospital. Seedo hardly ate, hardly slept, would spend his entire day next to her in the hospital – and when she came home, I remember standing at the top of the stairs as he held her hand and gently and patiently walked up with her, half-way stopping and bending his head to kiss her hand and tell her that the house had been filled with darkness in her absence. After 50 years of marriage and seven children, they still liked one another.

When teeta died, seedo stopped living, and died shortly thereafter.

As deeply as teeta loved her life with seedo and her children, she would occasionally tell me about Saa’da, and about the freedom of riding her. There were no rules for her while she was with Saa’da, neither obligation, nor consequence in the endless hours she’d spent with her.

Teeta had very strong opinions and was a force to be reckoned with when she wanted something; anything she pursued, she did it with justice and not a shred of selfishness. She ran her house with equal amounts of iron and love and her children and husband worshiped her for this. Being the first grandchild, I always remained a novelty and had access to secrets and stories the others didn’t.

She was a free spirit, teeta, this being so obvious in that photograph with Saa’da. This spirit was dulled and fragmented by the hardship of war and occupation, that wouldn’t allow her to visit her childhood home in Ashkelon from 1948 – 1967. All of the land we still own, but the farmland is no longer workable as when Israel became, they placed a ban on the watering of farmland and so my family’s orange groves died, except for the few trees that stood beside the swimming pool. These same trees still stand today, but the orange groves never rejuvenated.

Access to water, when manipulated accordingly, is more deadly than a bullet.

More importantly was that teeta’s own brother was murdered by the IDF in Khan Younis, after the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Awakened and pulled from his bed, alongside all of the men in the neighborhood, my great uncle and teeta’s brother in law were among the first to be lined up against a wall and shot dead because they were young Palestinian men and that made them a danger; pre-emptive strike the essence to the actions of the State of Israel.

Later, she would have to endure the imprisonment of her husband for nine months, as he was deemed a political threat. Worse still was that her youngest boy would be taken to jail for being a part of a protest and while in jail, beaten so badly that he walked out a man with epilepsy. Today, he would tell you that he is blessed to have walked out at all. These memories are the fabric of my mother’s family; my family.

The smile on teeta’s face as a young woman always told a story far removed from the pictures themselves and the surroundings within. Eternally, there was something happening behind her eyes, always standing out from the rest of the men and women in the pictures. Even though it was until the day she passed that she had a strange mix of innocence and naughtiness, pride and humbleness, the young woman who once pulled you out of your reality and into her photograph was lost after 1948.

It’s only as an adult that I understand the seduction of Saa’da. It is innocence in a distilled form, and freedom in the greatest sense. Not as entirely real as teeta or any of us ever imagine it to be, but when captured in a photograph, the feelings and representations are encapsulated, frozen and melancholy. Where we often lack perfection in every day, we find it in the stories we tell and the pictures we hold tightly.

It was no surprise to her children when they found a photo of Saa’da but none of themselves, as Saa’da was teeta’s lament for freedom in all of its varied forms.

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Originally published: 07/11/13.