A Journey Back Home

The first time I touched a dead body, I was 18. It was at the Battle House, a few hours after Nikki died. I wasn’t alone. There were four of us in total who had volunteered to wash and prepare Nikki Williams’ body for burial. My mother didn’t want me to participate in this ritual. She feared I would have nightmares. At 45, it would be her first time to see or wash a dead person. But I insisted. I wanted to touch a dead body, feel it. Smell it. I wanted to look for afterlife signs on Nikki’s face.I wanted to know what life was like inside a coffin. I wondered, and still wonder, what was happening to those who preceded us--the Pharaoh of Egypt, Saladin, Gandhi, Peter Jennings, Michael Jackson, Gadaffi, my grandmother?                                                           

We stood in the washroom – my mother, my older sister, my mother’s friend Nora – staring at the shape of Nikki’s body underneath the white sheets. I inspected the room and found stacks of dark blue cotton towels and white sheets in one corner. Bottles of Clorox spray and Lysol were under the sink. Over 25 shades of lipstick and eye shadow were arranged on the counter. Pink and red blush, Maybelline mascara, Old Spice cologne. Very Sexy Hot by Victoria’s Secret.

            My mother squeezed my hand. “Jinan,” she said in a small voice. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

            I nodded.

              I didn’t know what to expect under the sheet. I imagined the skeleton from Tales From the Crypt. Mother stepped towards the table and reached for the sheet. “Inna lilla wa inna e-layhi raji’oon.” She wiped a tear with the back of her palm.

            To God we belong, and to Him we shall return.

I stretched my neck to get a better view. I didn’t want to miss a moment, but as soon as Mama unveiled Nikki’s face, I shut my eyes. I waited for a scream. A cry. An Oh, My God. But it was quiet except for my mother whispering verses from the Quran.

            I opened my left eye. My mother held a finger under the faucet, waiting for the right temperature. My sister browsed through the shampoos, unscrewing the caps and sniffing until she finally selected the unscented bottle. I tiptoed towards Nikki’s body. Her eyes were gently closed, her lips sealed in the shape of a crescent. Her cheeks were pink, naturally. Her face was thin. She had lost almost 60 pounds because of the AIDS. I wanted to touch her so I uncovered her right arm. It was hard and cold, just like our kitchen’s granite countertop. I touched her pale fingers, one by one. I touched her white feet, her toenails, her eyelids.

            It was less than three months ago that my sister and I visited her at the hospice. We took her a yellow silk nightgown as a gift. I asked her if she was afraid of death. She was. But she said that converting to Islam had kept her alive, even after the death of her husband eight months earlier from the same disease.

            “This life is only a journey back home,” she said.

            “What do you mean?” I asked.

            “Paradise. Where our mother and father, Adam and Eve, originated.”

            I smoothed her hair with my fingers. I’d read about the rivers of honey and wine in the Quran, about the castles, the abundance of meat and pomegranate. I'd memorized the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad that teaches paradise is a place no eye has ever seen, ear has ever heard, or mind has ever imagined. But I couldn’t paint a picture of this heaven beside the scenes I had seen on The Simpsons and Southpark.      Mama was mopping Nikki’s collarbone and chest with an orange soap bar while her friend Nora showered after her with the hose. They moved down her body methodically until everything was cleansed. They rearranged the sheet so that her body was never completely exposed. My sister shampooed Nikki’s hair.

            “Can I wash her feet?” I asked.

            My mother looked at me, pulled her sleeve up and handed me the soap.

            Her feet were ice, her toenails tiles of glass. I rubbed her withered calves and knees.

            The last time I'd seen her pray at the Mosque, she prostrated for so long I feared she had died.

            “Are you all right?” I asked after she finally got up and finished salah.

            “I needed to ask God to take care of a few things after my death. I asked for an easy departure and to be reunited with my husband.”

            I regretted not spending more time with Nikki, even though she was 15 years older than me. I never knew why she had chosen Islam, how she had met her husband, or how they both ended up with AIDS.

            I finished washing her feet. Nikki Williams was clean, and it was time to perform on her the mandatory ablution Muslims make before praying a physical prayer.  
“Bismillah Rahman al-Rahim,” my mother said.

            In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

           Mother wiped her mouth and nose and face. I washed her right arm. My sister washed her left arm. Mama wiped Nikki’s hair, ears, and neck. Nora washed her right and left foot.

            We dried her body with the dark blue towels. My sister braided Nikki’s hair, then carried the white pre-cut sheets to the table. We wrapped her in seven sheets, covering everything except her face. She looked pure.

            We paused. No one said a word. Mama cried. She pulled out a napkin from her dress pocket and pressed it against her eyes. This made my sister cry. I wondered who would wash me. I wondered if I would look so natural, buried with nothing except white cloth and my Book of Deeds. 

            We rolled in the coffin and stationed it next to Nikki. Even though she weighed only 57 pounds, her body felt much heavier. We lowered her inside and curved her face to the right. Nora searched for the bottle of rose water in her purse, and peppered it over the body.

            After that, I would never have rose water in my baklava or milk pudding.  

            Mama closed the lid. This is when I started to cry. Not because I’m claustrophobic. I was afraid of dying; of leaving this earth. Of going back home to where Adam and Eve were created. I was afraid of being judged for cheating all throughout Geometry and Islamic Studies class, for the time I stole from Wal-Mart and let a boy in high school hold my hand and see my hair. Of the time I smoked. The time I told my brother that his bed was a toilet while he was sleepwalking. And when I let the pool guy stare at me swimming in a hot pink bra instead of grabbing my towel.

            I didn’t want to go to hell. Or heaven. I didn't want to live in a castle. Or drink from the river of wine. I didn't want to believe that life beyond Earth existed.

            I was no longer interested in justice, in reward or punishment. I thought, let us simply die: The Prophets. Helen Keller. Hitler. Mother Teresa. Soldiers who raped Bosnian girls. Children slaughtered in Rwanda. Iraqi infants blown up into pieces. My neighbor who killed his wife. The mother who drowned her four kids. The old man who searches through dumpsters for food. The student who volunteers her afternoons at the Ronald McDonald House. The doctor who donates a year’s salary to education.

No reward. No punishment. Just ashes.

My sister put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay.”

            I let her lead me outside to the car. It was noon. Before we drove to the cemetery, Nikki had to be escorted to the Mosque where everyone in the community would join in the funeral prayer.

            Two policemen waited outside the Mosque parking lot, observing us until we finished praying. They then led the carpool to the cemetery. It took the thirty cars--a few Mercedes, one Hummer, a Jaguar, a Rolls Royce, and a many more vehicles--twenty minutes to reach the cemetery. I was silent the entire way. I stared at the rows of palm trees bordering the wide golf courses, and listened to the Quranic verses Mother had turned on. “For devout men and women, for men and women who are patient, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast, for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God’s praise, for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and great reward.”

            I thought about Nikki. Did she know she was on her way to be buried? We passed billboards for Disney World and Island of Adventure before we reached a small dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We took a right on Medina Drive and parked. We walked over the long grass and around the untrimmed bushes. Five men carried the coffin while the rest followed. We gathered around the grave. Less than a year ago I had stood at the same spot holding Nikki’s hand as her husband was lowered into the ground.

            Was death really a journey back home? Could Nikki see us? Hear us? I’ve memorized the three questions the Angels of Death ask as soon as the earth swallows you up: Who is your God? What is your Religion? Who is your Prophet?

            I know about the barzakh, the place souls linger until the Day of Judgment.

            Did Nikki's husband know that she was going to be buried three feet to his right?

            I knew about the window to paradise that reveals a person's promised spot in the afterlife if they answer correctly. The window to hell is on the left. But what was happening to Nikki at that particular second--as everyone lifted a handful of dirt and sprinkled it over the coffin? 

            I longed to witness the angels questioning her. To listen to her answers. I thought about my mother, my father, my brothers, my sisters. I never wanted to bury any of them. I bent down, scooped soil into my palm, and dropped it into the hole. The Imam recited a prayer.

            "Amen," we all said.

            The shovel was passed around and everyone took a turn to fill the grave. Even an eight year old girl. The hole was sealed. People started walking back to their cars. And that was the end of the funeral. Last night Nikki slept in her bed, above the ground; tonight, she sleeps inside. Alone. It was time to go home, time to return to life. To eat dinner, watch The Office, brush our teeth, sleep, and wake up.    

            A small group of people stayed behind. I overheard the Imam tell a woman--she had concealed her tears behind Ray-ban sunglasses--that God would have created a tribe of sinners for the sole purpose of sinning and repenting and sinning and repenting and sinning, just to demonstrate His patience and mercy. In response, I recited one of my favorite verses, “And when my slave asks about Me, let him know that I am near. I respond to the invocations of the supplicant when he calls on Me. So let them obey Me, and believe in Me so that they may be guided.”

           

I dropped to the earth and prostrated in the direction of Mecca, my forehead pressed to the grass. I called God by His most beautiful names. Oh Merciful. Generous. Powerful. Forgiving. Peaceful. I asked for humility. I prayed for the life of every soul since Adam. I prayed for the old man who ate drumsticks from dumpsters to find a job. For the children who grew up eating only canned foods. I asked for a conscience that wouldn’t allow me to sleep until the persons I had wronged had forgiven me. I asked God to be patient with my inevitable sins. And to never let me forget Him.  

            

          

Mar Elias Palestinian Refugee Camp

The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him said, "I and the one who sponsors an orphan will be in Paradise like these two” – and he gestured with his forefinger and middle finger, holding them apart.

Beirut, Lebanon

“Do they like sweets?” I asked the driver.

“They love anything sweet, especially baklava,” Mustafa answered as he swerved the minivan between orange and green taxis and a red Mercedes. He was driving in the middle of two lanes, honking his way forward. I buckled up. 

            “Are you nervous?” Ismael asked.

I looked at my husband, reached for his hand, and wondered how many guys would have agreed to fly across the world to spend a few days of their short school vacation at a refugee camp. I had dreamed about this moment for four years, since the day I had signed up to sponsor five-year old Safiya.

After I graduated high school, I decided to spend the monetary gifts from family friends  sponsoring an orphan. The agency sent me detailed profiles of over 500 children from the ages of one to sixteen. How was I ever supposed to select a child? It didn’t seem fair or right to the other 499 children I wouldn’t select. As I had scrolled through pages and pages of children, five year old Safiya, a Palestinian living in a refugee camp in Lebanon had stood out simply for no other reason than having the same name as my first niece.

Next to her name was her picture. She had very dark, brown, empty eyes with no smile. Her parents were both dead and she lived with her grandmother, an uncle, two brothers, one older sister, and her twin sister Mona. I called the relief agency that Mustafa and his co-worker Aisha worked for to learn more about the sponsorship. I asked if I could sponsor Safiya’s twin too, but the receptionist confirmed that Mona was already being sponsored by a lady in Texas.  

“No,” I responded. I let go of my husband’s palm. “How does my hijab look?”

“Perfect,” Ismael said.

Aisha sat in the passenger’s seat giving Mustafa directions to the bakery.

 “Sarah, do you know what you want to buy?” Aisha asked.

“I’d like to take the girls cake.” 

“If you want cake,” Mustafa interrupted, “this bakery is known to be the best in Beirut. It’ll have everything you’ve ever imagined and more.”

I licked my lips as I remembered I still hadn't eaten anything after being interrogated at the Syrian border 24 hours earlier because I was the daughter of a woman who lived with a college roommate who had a brother who tried to overthrow the Assad regime in 1979, 28 years ago.

The driver swerved into the bakery’s parking lot and made a sudden stop. Ismael and I unbuckled our seatbelts and stepped out of the vehicle while Mustafa and Aisha waited in the car.

The bakery was warm and clean and sugary. The owner was boiling sugary rosewater syrup on the stove.

“Ahlan wa-sahlan,” he said, greeting us with a smile that revealed his coffee stained teeth. 

Mustafa was right. This bakery had to be the best in Beirut. Every kind of dessert was displayed. I turned around and saw over twenty-five different styles of buttercream cake. They were each decorated with rich, creamy frosting and fruits. Some cakes had sliced strawberries and berries and kiwis. Other cakes had apples and mangos and bananas. 

“How much for this?” I asked, pointing to the vanilla cake with sliced mangos, kiwis, peaches, and strawberries on top, and a sprinkle of crushed pistachio.

“Fifty pounds.”

“Do you accept VISA or American dollars?”

He pulled out the calculator from underneath the cabinet, punched a few buttons and then said, “That’ll be eighty-two dollars.”

It was the first time I would spent more than $10 on a cake, and I didn’t even mind.  Ismael gave the owner a $100 bill.

I grabbed the small cake and returned to the car.

“Oh, my God,” Aisha said, “it smells so good.”

Mustafa started the ignition and drove out of the parking lot.

“Remind me again, were Safiya and Mona born at the camp?” I asked.

“In their very house. The camp is their life, but Palestine is their home,” Aisha said.
Fortunately,” Mustafa began, “their grandmother, who you will see shortly, takes very good care of them. She’s been living in the camp since 1952, the year Mar Elias was established to help the Palestinian refugees. She was 16 when she arrived with her mother and never returned. Her children have never seen Palestine with their own eyes."

                      

Mustafa continued to drive toward the camp and pointed to the concrete building in which the Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri had been assassinated. Ashes were still everywhere. The site was still under investigation five months after the attack. Yellow tape bordered the scene, prohibiting anyone from entering. In front of the building was a deep, large, mud hole where his car had been bombed. Dug into the ground were poles of Lebanese flags. The red and white fabric with a little green tree in the center was swinging back and forth from the breeze that the sea carried.

 The streets were crowded with hundreds of cars and people crossing the roads. There were several charter buses waiting around for the European tourists, all of whom seemed to be over the age of fifty. Some carried book-bags on their backs, while others wore pouches around their waists. 

The Mediterranean Sea was dark blue as the afternoon sun blended into the water. As we continued to drive, the roads became narrow and rocky. The buildings were old and broken. Parts of windows were missing, the concrete looked fragile, and the paint was fading away. Outside the windows were women stretching their bodies forward to hang their wet laundry of t-shirts, trousers, undershirts, and scarves on rusted wires.

Mustafa then turned into a pebbly road and said, “This is Mar Elias Palestinian Refugee Camp.”

            If Mustafa had not made that announcement, I would have believed we entered the West Bank. The red, white, green, and black colors of the Palestinian flags were hanging from each door and planted on each rooftop. Posted on the walls of homes and small convenience stores were pictures of Yasir Arafat’s famous pose, signaling peace with two fingers, and Ahmad Yassin, founder of Hamas, with his long white beard and a scarf thrown over his head.

There were children running in the tight alleys barefoot, playing soccer with a deflated ball. A little boy dressed in muddy, green shorts, and an orange shirt which looked too tight on him, sat in the dirt playing with dinosaurs. Young men stood outside smoking cigarettes and shisha. The people stood around with nothing to do, as if waiting for a miracle.

            The camp looked as if a tornado had chewed every home, tree, car, and store, and then spat them all out again.   

            “Do you see that building?” Mustafa pointed immediately ahead of us. “Those are bullet holes from 70’s civil war.”

            “And people live there?”

            “Yes, a family’s there right now.”

I looked at Ismael, and he was in a deep stare.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m so glad I came with you,” he said.

            I glanced at the homes from inside the van and took digital pictures. I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with my camera once the van stopped or bring excessive attention to myself, so I hurried to capture whatever I could. I wondered how families sheltered themselves from the rain during the summer and from the severe cold nights during the winter. The windows were broken, the roofs stripped off, the apartments stained with black ash.

            There was a woman standing in front of her home that had dark gray hair and wrinkled hands that trembled as she held a photograph. I could see sadness in her eyes. Next to her were little girls sitting on dry mud playing with handicapped dolls. The arms of the Barbie were missing. There were several garbage dumps at the corners overflowing with ketchup-flavored chips bags, watermelon peels, coke bottles, and cigarette boxes. Over the garbage was a vortex of flies. I rolled down the window just an inch, and a stench of rotten food filled the car.   

As we drove, I could hear crackling underneath the van that sounded as if the tires were about to explode. I looked at the ground and saw piles of the civil war debris: shards of broken glass, bullets, sticks, stones.

            “Safiya’s living condition is horrible, yet much better than many of these people you’re seeing.”

            “If the two of you were staying an extra day, we would’ve taken you to Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camp. Although it's 2005 and the massacre occurred in 1982, it looks as if someone pushed the pause button. People there think the Mar Elias community is wealthy,” Mustafa said.

           Mustafa stopped and turned off the ignition. I grabbed the gifts and stepped outside. A crowd of little boys and girls ran to the van with huge smiles across their faces. I felt guilty for not bringing enough gifts.

“Who are you visiting,” a boy about eleven years old asked.

I rubbed his hair. “We’re visiting Safiya and Mona. Do you know them?”

He bounced the soccer ball on his head. “We go to school together.”

“What’s your name?” Ismael asked.

“My name is Musa!” he said, flexing his bicep.

“Do you like soccer?”

“Of course, I’m the Ronaldo in this camp,” he laughed as he wiggled his loose tooth with his tongue.

“Well then,” Ismael said, “We’ll just have to play a quick game before I leave to see if that’s true.”

Musa smiled and pounded his chest with pride.

 I wrapped the cake in a black garbage bag I found in the van to veil it from the children. We walked through a narrow pathway and stepped over pieces of glass and sharp stones to get to Safiya’s home. I started to imagine how they would greet me, and how we would spend the day together. There were starving felines hunting for food in the decayed dumpsters. They were the type of cats I didn’t feel comfortable touching. Two of them had only three legs, limping their way through the alleys. Other cats were so gray with dirt that it stained their white and orange fur. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and quickly wiped it with my scarf. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the cats or the children.

            “That’s her home,” pointed Aisha. It was about four floors high, and I was relieved to see that the building had managed to preserve its roof. We climbed up the spiral stairs supported by a half and broken wall.

            There were two identical twins waiting at the top.

            “Safiya?” I looked at the girl on the left.

            They both giggled. I wasn’t sure if the giggle was because I mistook Mona for Safiya or because they caught a glimpse of the cake.

            “I’m Safiya,” the girl on the right said.

            I gave the bag of cake to Ismael, got on my knees, and hugged them both, kissing each girl on her face and on the top of her head.

            “You two are going to have to wear different shirts so I can tell you apart,” I said.

            They giggled some more.

“Aren’t you going to take me inside?” I laughed.

They were too shy to speak, so they opened the door for me. I watched Safiya play with her thick, dark brown ponytail. I tried to find something distinct on Safiya that would help me tell her apart from her sister. Their skin was a shade of olive that brought out their large, black eyes. They both reached my shoulders and together we walked into their home.

            The entrance door led us into the small family room with only one green couch that was ripped on both sides and stained with brown ink, and a brown recliner that seemed to be growing mold. The plaster on the wall was peeling off. A few rusted fold-up chairs were leaning against the wall underneath the Palestinian flag that spread itself like a portrait.

            “Haj-ja,” Aisha mouthed each syllable loudly and carefully.

            The old woman on the recliner who was hemming a pair of pants looked up, squinted her peanut eyes, and brushed a few strands of gray hair into her blue, triangular scarf.

            “Sarah and Ismael are here,” Aisha said, reaching over to kiss the woman’s hand.

            The grandmother put down her sewing, smiled, and called us to her so that she could greet us.

            “Asalamu alaikum, Khala,” I said, kneeling down and kissing her hand.

            Ismael kissed her hand after me and then she signaled us to sit down on the green couch.

             Safiya and Mona watched us as we greeted their grandmother. Then they followed us to the couch and sat next to me. I was in the middle. 

            “How do you like our new Barbie t-shirts?” Safiya asked.

            “They’re beautiful! I love them. Where did you get them?”

            “The camp distributed new clothes last weekend to all the children who passed the fourth grade.” 

            “That’s awesome! Because you two are so smart and love school, I bought you some really cool stuff,” I said.

            Another girl, about 17, walked in carrying a tray of cups and a glass bottle of mango juice.

            “Marhaba, I’m Eman, Safiya and Mona’s older sister.”

            I stood up, greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks and then helped her serve the drinks after she placed the tray on the bubbly, wooden coffee table.

            After we gulped our last sip of the icy mango juice, I uncovered the cake and said, “I heard you two love fruit cake.” Their eyes lit up like candles. They stared at the cake and I could hear them reserving their slices. Eman brought me a dull knife from the kitchen and some reusable plastic plates, and I began to cut and serve the cake to everyone in the room, including the brothers.

            “This cake is delicious,” Mona said.

            “Look at mine, look at how many mangos I got,” Safiya said.

            “Once you finish the cake, we have some more presents for you,” Ismael told the girls.

            They started to chew quickly and laughed as they stuffed their mouths with cake and frosting spread over their lips. Ismael and I then pulled out the book bags from the gift bag.

            “This is for you, Safiya, and this one is yours, Mona. Open it, there are more stuff inside,” Ismael said.

            They raced to open the bags and found the Strawberry Shortcake collection along with a lunch box and a water bottle.

            “Wow, look at this Mona! Did you get one too?” Safiya said, rushing to her sister’s side.

            Mona searched for the markers and then pulled them out. I had made sure to get them exactly the same items and could see them comparing each gift to make sure that neither had received anything extra or cooler.

            “We’re going to have the best school supplies in the whole class,” Safiya said.

            “Yeah, all the other kids are going to be so jealous,” Mona stuck out her tongue.

            “So now you both have to work very hard in school and try to be the best in class,” said their grandmother. “I don’t want your teachers calling me anymore about your grades.”

            As the girls packed the gifts into their new book bags, the grandmother, who was rocking in her chair, called me over to her. Her weary eyes were moist as she kissed my head and then showed me a picture of the twin’s parents.

“My son died first and then their mother. Safiya visits them almost everyday after school at the cemetery and begs them to return.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s been a very long time since the girls had been this happy.” Her smile was so deep it felt absent. I imagined she must have been remembering the days when the family was still together, when her son was still alive.

“He loved them very much, and died when they were only five.” she said.

“Come on Sarah, we want to show you the house and the glow-in-the-dark stars you sent us,” the girls said.

            “I stuck them on myself,” Mona said.

            “No! I helped you,” Safiya insisted.

            “First our homes are stolen and burned. Everyone in my village was forced to leave and that’s when my mother and I came here, along with my uncles over fifty years ago,” the grandmother continued. “Then my son is taken away from me. What can we do but pray. Pray for hope, pray for a miracle.”

Safiya and Mona came and grabbed me by the arm and gave me a tour of their small home. There was only one bedroom.

“This is our room, see the stars?”

“Me, Safiya, Eman, and teta sleep here.”

“Who’s the lucky one who sleeps next to your grandmother?” I asked.

“Both of us. But sometimes she snores so loud I make Mona sleep next to her.”

“My brothers sleep in the living room with our uncle.”

“Khalah Aisha told me that you two are artists. Show me some of your paintings,” I said.

Safiya dropped to the ground and crawled underneath the bed to pull out a

box. Inside were more drawings, a broken necklace, an empty bottle of gardenia body lotion, a pair of men’s navy blue socks, and an old green toothbrush with bristles flying in all directions.

            “This is mine, I painted it when I was six.”

            “Where’s mine?” Mona asked, searching through the box.

            “Don’t ask me. Maybe you threw yours away.”

            “No I didn’t! I put it in the box with yours.”

            I glanced at the image and saw amongst a rainbow and three birds, a little girl sitting on a large rock next to two graves holding in one hand a bottle of cream, and in the other hand a blue sock and a green toothbrush. 

            “I love the colors in the rainbow, Safiya. You should be an artist,” I said.

            “That’s what I’m planning to do. I want to become the most famous painter in the world!”

            She returned the picture, closed the box, and pushed it back underneath the bed.

“And this is the kitchen,” Safiya pointed. The kitchen could only fit

one person at a time. On the floor was a tin can of orange butter, a jar of olives, and a bag of rice. There were clean dishes piled over the sink and one old sponge to handwash everything. The stove and oven were smaller than my niece’s play kitchen. I opened the deserted door at the corner, and there was a hole in the ground for a toilet.

“What’s all this water for?” I asked, pointing to the seven buckets on the floor.

“The electricity shuts off everyday at 6:00 pm, so we have to store water for emergencies,” Mona rushed to answer before her sister.  

            I smiled, though deep inside my heart burned. Our bus leaves the next morning back to Syria where we would depart to America in a few days. I wanted to stay longer.

“Where do you girls want to go today?" I asked.

            “You mean outside the camp?”

            “Yes, any place in Beirut.”

            The girls looked at each other and opened their mouths wide.

            “Let’s go to the arcade,” Mona said, jumping up and down.

            “No, let’s eat pizza. I want to eat in a restaurant,” Safiya said.

            “How about renting a boat and going into the sea?” Mona begged.

            “No, no let’s go to the mall,” Safiya suggested.

Aisha told me earlier in the morning that Mustafa was available to be our personal driver for the entire day, and so I told the girls that we could go to the arcade, eat pizza, rent a boat, and go to the mall if we had time.

I looked at their older sister. “Eman,” I said. “Come with us.”

“Are you sure, maybe you want to spend time with my sisters alone?”

“Of course not! You have to come,” I said.

Safiya grabbed my hand and started to pull me out the door while Mona grabbed Ismael’s hand. I tried to say goodbye to the grandmother as Safiya pushed me outside.

“Have fun,” the grandmother said. And as I looked back to take one last glance at her, I saw a tear roll off her chin.

            We were able to do everything the girls dreamed of doing that day. They requested refills every time their coke finished, tested every machine at the arcade, splashed each other with the paddles in the sea, and laughed in each other’s arms.

They asked me all sorts of questions as we returned to the van and headed back to the camp.

“Do you have your own car?”

“No,” I lied, thinking about my two-door black Accord and Ismael’s red Murano.

“What about a TV?”

“Yeah, a very small and old one,” I said, thinking about the 60 inch High Definition LCD installed on our living room wall with over 200 channels.”

“Do you have a mother and father? What are they like?”

I didn’t know what to say. Should I lie? Should I pretend they were dead or abusive?

“I do. And they told me to give you a big kiss when I told them I would visit you two.”

 They asked me if everyone in America was rich, and if the electricity and water went out after 6:00 pm.

            “Mama,” they started to call me.

            My face became so red. “No sweetheart, I’m your big sister, like Eman.”

“But we want to call you mama,” Safiya cried.

I tried to imagine what it felt like to never be able to utter that four-letter word ‘mama’ ever again.

They started to laugh and scream, and blow air in our faces with the handful of straws they grabbed from the restaurant. When we returned to the camp and Mustafa parked the van next to the girls’ home, Ismael helped them get out and grabbed their leftover pink cotton candy.

“Stay one more day, please,” Safiya begged, squeezing my hand.

“Please don’t go,” Mona whispered.

I looked at Ismael and saw him try to hide the wetness in his eyes.

“I want to stay, but my bus leaves tomorrow morning. I promise I’ll come back soon.”

“Please don’t go,” Safiya reemphasized.

“Come here, both of you, and give me a hug.” I leaned over both girls and kissed the top of their heads. “Today was the greatest day of my life,” I told them. “And I will be back to see my two little sisters very soon,” I said, wiping the tear away from Safiya’s cheek. I kissed her eyes.

Mustafa was waiting in the driver’s seat to take us back to the hotel, the five star hotel Ismael and I were staying in – the hotel that charged $200 per night while $50 was sufficient to feed and clothe Safiya for an entire month. Ismael reached for my hand and we climbed into the van. I cracked open the back window and stuck my fingers outside, waving goodbye. The girls stared as they held on tightly to Eman’s hands. I blew one last kiss and sat forward.
And that's when I allowed my tears to fall down.

A Syrian Mother's Dream

Her name was Fatima, or as her children called her, Fatoom. She was known to be one of the most beautiful girls in a small village in Syria: blonde hair and green eyes with fair skin. Like many girls in her village, she dreamed about marriage and of having children. When that fantasy became reality, it took less than ten months for the birth of her first daughter. In a time where boys were preferred, Fatoom was pressured by the town to try again quickly. She attempted a second time. A third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Seventh. Her value as a woman was reduced as she became known as "the mother of girls."

When Fatoom learned of her eighth pregnancy, she anticipated more verbal lashes from family and neighbors. The pressure was too daunting she could not sleep for days. She tried many things to detach this baby from her body. But the little boy inside only grasped stronger. After seven girls, her first son was born: Yahia.

In a culture where superstition surfaced, Fatoom believed that the jealousy of other women, women who insisted that she continue trying for a boy, would destroy her green-eyed son. She extended her reputation as being a "mother of girls" by allowing Yahia's golden blonde hair reach his back and flow down to his waist for seven years. To the village, he was just another daughter, Number Eight, until she cut his hair and distributed its weight in gold for charity.

Fatoom taught all ten of her children to serve the earth and feed the hungry. She shared the story of how her mother never locked their door in the village because if someone ever tried to steal, it probably meant he needed to. Her illiterate hands whipped them with the hose used to wash the balcony if they failed to do well in school. She was a pillar of strength, a leader in her home, and a follower of her own wisdom: God gave you two ears and one mouth to talk less and listen more.

Yahia was a bright student and scored very high on his high school exam, landing him into first year of medical school. Fatoom took care of her children. She cooked for them. She washed their laundry. She disciplined them if they fell off track. She gifted them her heart and health all at the expense of them earning an education, something that was not available to her. She was proud of Yahia’s promising medical future, proud that he would be the child to take care of her when she became older, and proud that he clung to her womb when she once tried to slowly erase him from life.

When her son graduated medical school, and moved to Beirut for residency, Fatoom’s vision of his future in Syria, by her side, was invaded. For no crime other than wanting to live in a free and democratic Syria, Yahia was harassed by the bloodthirsty Syrian Secret Service in Lebanon and disappeared. When Fatoom learned of his eclipse, she became physically paralyzed for three months until she received word that he was alive and had escaped Beirut. Just like that, her “eighth daughter” was gone.

Fatoom held on to her dream of welcoming her son back into his country, back into his city, and right into his very own home. Every time the door bell rang, she glued her eyes to the door and prayed it would be her son. “I want to hear you climb up the stairs, hold your hand against my face, and smell you before I die,” she said every time she spoke to him. Even after her stroke, destroying her of the ability to lift a spoon into her mouth, raise a cup to her lips, or elevate her own neck, she held on to that dream. She survived off the compassion of her children and grandchildren for six years. Her nine other children were by her side serving her, especially her two adult daughters who never married. But her son, her Yahia, was now only a memory, a picture in a frame with his wife and five children in Florida. She held on to her dream of playing with his now fading black hair while his head rested on her lap, of boiling him tea to help him study at night, of asking him to deliver homemade pita bread to hungry families. She held on to her dream for 31 years and two months.

On October 4, 2010, Yahia arranged for a grand family reunion in Mersin, Turkey. Everyone would attend: father, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, grandchildren, and even Fatoom’s sister. Fatoom’s 80 year old veined body regained little movement in her legs. Her reversed lips turned into a crescent. Her dry eyes no longer itched and a rain of tears fell down her face. Her concrete voice found laughter. Every family member in Aleppo witnessed the changes. She decided to wear a pink, long-sleeved dress. She insisted on purchasing new shoes even though her legs failed to carry her.

On Wednesday, October 18, four days before the reunion, Fatoom Skyped with her son in the United States. She giggled her way through the video-chat, and continued to tell her children to make sure the bus would not leave her behind. Whenever anyone came to visit Fatoom as she sat in the living room wearing her new shoes, she directed them to the balcony and asked if the bus had arrived.

The day her son left the US on October 22, and flew to Turkey, Fatoom’s body felt warm. Her two adult daughters that still lived at home decided to take her to al-Shahabaa Hospital, only a few miles from their apartment. Fatoom refused to go at first. She was terrified of not returning in time to catch the bus. As she laid on her hospital bed, draped in her pink gown with her feet tucked into her new brown shoes, the doctor entered as her state of awareness began to decline.

          “Yahia,” she said in a small voice. She took a deep, long pause as she felt her chest pump oxygen.
          “How did you come? Are you safe? Are you sure the Mukhabarat are not following you?”

          The doctor pulled down his glasses, looked at Fatoom’s second daughter, and lifted his right brow.

          Fatoom inched her neck forward. “Let me touch your face.”

          The doctor slowly pulled himself closer to his patient.

          Fatoom took his hand and held it to her face. “Ashhadu an La illaha illa’Allah, wa ashhadu anna  
          Muhammad rasoolullah.”

She continued to repeat what every Muslim is taught to say during their last seconds of life, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger,” until the last breath was expelled from her mouth.

Meanwhile, Yahia was at the airport in Istanbul, showered with fresh cologne, waiting for his 4 AM flight to Antakya, the closest airport to Mersin. He sat in the blue airport chair with his gaze fixed into the air. The smile on his face was so large as he imagined himself kissing his mother’s hand, and thinking of things to say that would make her laugh and lift her spirits. His international cell phone rang and interrupted his daydreaming. It was his eldest son in Philadelphia. Words struggled to come out of his son’s mouth. There was a pause. And then it was silent.

          Yahia subtracted the smile off his face and cleared his throat. “Did your grandmother die?”

          His son let out a gush of breath. “Yes.” It was silent for a few more seconds. “Athamma Allahu
          ajrak. May God reward you greatly for your patience during this loss.”

Eleven months after the people of Syria peacefully stood up to demand freedom on March 15, 2011, mothers are still watching their daughters and sons, both children and adults, be brutally murdered. Sometimes the fight gets so dark before the birth of a new dawn. That sun will rise soon, and lift the curtain to thousands of mothers waiting to reunite with their children, and prevent future mothers from ever having to return to God before touching the faces of their loved ones, or ever having to kiss goodbye the faces of their children who should still be alive 

Finding My Syrian-American Identity

My father always said, “You don’t understand the price of freedom.” But I know I understand the price of being robbed of my right to grow up around grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I know the price of growing up nation-less. The price of having no national identity. The cost of not knowing where I am from.

I am the daughter of a mother wanted for execution in Syria for simply owning a dream to think freely, and of a father who would not bow to the country’s criminal silence. They escaped in 1980, reunited in Jordan, moved to Iraq, United States, Canada, then once again back to the United States. They stamped each country with the birth of a child, clinging to their dream of returning to Syria. I was born in Montreal, Canada.

As a child, I was Syrian. But as a teenager, I was lost. In America, I wasn’t American. On my two visits to Syria, I wasn’t Syrian. I couldn’t own pride to a country that stripped my mother and father from the right to live or the right to return. I didn’t understand the fear, the silence, the poverty, or why my grandfather hung a two foot portrait of the President Hafez Assad right above his television. When my 13 year old cousin pointed his finger at me and accused his uncle, my father, for being too much of an arrogant doctor in America to even pay a small visit to his family in Syria, I opened my mouth to unleash my rage only to find my grandfather’s strong palm glue itself to my lips.

At 24, after I completed Graduate school, still without an identity or nationality to boast, I decided that I would embrace the identity of being an “American,” and accept my Syrian heritage as something that belonged to my parents, something of the past. I slowly erased that image from my memory.

After the revolution in Tunisia dominoed its way to Syria, and peaceful protestors were instantly captured, detained, and had their hearts foam out of their mouths, I didn’t understand why my mother and father were depriving themselves of sleep at night. I was offended that when I flew across the country to visit them over the holidays, they were not emotionally with me as we sipped our nightly tea. They were glued to their computer screen at home, signed into Skype, talking, arranging, organizing, doing anything and everything within their human power to help the people of Syria. They even traveled to Turkey and lived with 8,000 Syrian refugees in Antakya for one month as an in-house doctor and emotional supporter sleeping in their tents and using their overcrowded toilets.   

For 11 months, I prayed for the dead, the detained, and the tortured. I followed the news for ten days then abandoned it for twenty. I wanted to put this past behind me. I wanted to convince myself that there was nothing more I could possibly do. But as the symphony of protestors grew louder and stronger, bouncing off high concrete walls, over a web of narrow ancient alleys every time a child was sniped, a woman beaten, and a man burned to death only after breaking his back and slicing off his fingers, my heart began to feel alive. I began to see a different purpose to this life. Was it simply to get an education, dine at fancy restaurants, travel, have children, and move into a large home while the blood of others gushed into rivers, or children die of starvation? Where were the Syrians finding the courage to persist? Where had their fear and silence gone? I no longer wanted to continue my perfectly played out movie, or worry about things that really didn’t matter.

My numbness to the image of tortured body after body after body for the past 11 months burst. I finally understood my parents’ overworking their mind, body, and heart. I understood how they went two days without feeding their stomachs because they had no time to stop. No interest.  They had no time to even grow hungry. My parents outran death, literally, when 40,000 others couldn’t.  For 26 years they told me and my siblings that this life was only a journey, and the purpose of that journey was to make it to heaven. “Never get too comfortable,” my father said. “Be the last to eat and the first to serve.” Just as my parents began to grow numb to the idea of ever returning to Syria, watching the last flicker of fire fade, a few boys in the village of Daraa relit the match.

I am not the child who was brought to America to have a better life. I am not the Syrian daughter who came because her parents wanted to practice medicine and flourish financially. I am the child of a man who miraculously escaped in the trunk of a Beetle, and helped by a Lebanese priest flee the country. I am the daughter of a woman who was grabbed by her neighbor inches before entering into her apartment to warn her that the Syrian Secret Police were inside waiting for her. She watched her two roommates be hauled into Mukhabarat vehicles, then thrown into torture cells for nine years. I am the granddaughter of a man shot by the Mukhabarat, and later killed. I am the granddaughter of two women whose dying wishes were to see their daughter and their son in Syria, embrace their hand, and hold it against their own face while they ejected their last breath.

  

That is who I am. Only now am I learning to adopt and combine the qualities that make America so great, and the qualities that charge Syria with spirit. Only now do I realize that my lost identity, split into two countries, symbolize who I am. I know that I am proud to have grown up American and free, to have been educated, to ask questions, seek answers, sleep at night comfortably, proud to have a childhood. I am proud to see the men, women, and even boys and girls fight for freedom, fight for the silence of their parents and grandparents. I am proud to own Syrian blood. I am proud to stand up for truth and speak against injustice, something my parents were able to teach me because we were in America, and something I witnessed my Syrian brothers and sisters die for. I am proud to be Syrian-American and American-Syrian. And in the end, this life is really only a journey; and my journey is to hold my free mind in one hand and courage in the other, and live for something worth living for.