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| My grandfather's study in Damascus (a.k.a. my favorite place on this entire planet) |
"Stop annoying me!
Oh my god! Leave me alone!" I woke up to the sound of my grandfather's
voice, pleading with my laughing grandmother, who was waking him up. She must
have been tickling him or something and he was agitated.
"La hawla wala
quwata illah billah. Amal! You're so annoying!"
I cracked up and wished that to be my daily alarm clock rather
than the default iPhone ones.
My grandfather had
surgery back in June and no one told me till much later. Then, three days
before our trip to Syria he fell and it scared the heck out of everyone, especially
him.
Last year I noticed how
different he was and I knew that the war had aged not only him, but everyone
drastically. The thing is many of my grandparents' peers have passed and I can
recognize how that shakes them. In last year's trip, I attended over seven
funerals in a span of three months and it was surreal. I'm here now, and
considering everything that's happened to me internally and externally, this
trip has felt even more indescribable.
We sat on the couch and
my grandfather elevated his legs up on a stool. I could see the bruises and
scrapes from his fall on them and he looked off into the distance. I don't
wonder too long what he's thinking because he usually ends up breaking the
silence with the thought. "How do you take those cell phone pictures of
your self that everyone is doing?" he asked, referring to the notorious
selfie! I picked up my phone and told him to smile as we took our first selfie.
He nodded his head in understanding. I wish I could post it but I wasn’t
wearing my scarf.
My grandmother came and
sat between us as commercials played in the background to our born again
silence. She looked at him then reached over to massage his ankles gently and
said, "Hello there, Mister Abdallah." (For my family, this is when
Teta says her usual, “Ahlain Abdallah Beik!”) My heart cracked and then
shattered and then its pieces melted and I wanted to cry. Why doesn't love like
that exist anymore? I wouldn’t even ask what’s their secret because there’s
clearly a divine power and destiny.
These two people were
meant to meet, meant to marry and meant to make magic. Seven years ago I was
blessed with the opportunity to spend six months of my life with these two
phenomenal people in the best place in the world. The experience was utterly
remarkable that I intended on moving back there soon after my final semester of
graduate school I had left. But a few months after my departure, the revolution
started and everything changed. Before I left, I asked my grandparents if I
could take a photo with them and surprisingly my grandmother agreed.
See, in my entire
lifetime, I never saw my grandmother agree to take photos. She hates getting
her picture taken and always refuses. It’s a well-known thing. So when I took
the risk and asked if she’d join my grandfather and I, and she said yes, I was
floored, but I was moved because I knew why. I had just spent six months with
her in the most memorable experience of our lives. When she dropped me off at
the airport, she was crying like I had never seen before. Neither one of us
wanted to say goodbye; and before I left, I gifted them a poem titled “Two
Words” with the photo in a silver filigreed frame. It was a poem I wrote,
expressing my gratitude for not only the time spent with them, but for
everything they’ve ever done, including giving me my mother.
I had asked my grandma
once, on a quiet afternoon, while my grandpa was sleeping after lunch, how they
had met. Very briefly she said, “We were part of the same group of friends and
he would always annoy me and make fun of my Aleppo accent.” That was all I got
folks. My mom once asked and my grandpa said, “If Amal approves, I’ll tell you
the whole story, but she won’t approve.” Now I’m curious. It sounds like such
an exciting love story, but one that’s lasted a lifetime, something we don’t
see anymore and something I’ve unfortunately lost faith in. Not in my
generation anyway.
They were, and still are,
people who do not hold each other back but rather push the other to keep going.
My grandfather has no problem with my grandmother working and my grandmother
always had my grandfather’s back—and his line of work was very challenging,
including networking, moving, diplomacy and much more.
These days, if you don’t
answer a man’s text in ten seconds, he throws a tantrum and says you clearly
aren’t “wifey material” because you’re obviously way too busy to wait on him
hand and foot. Yes, that has happened. On this trip, I overheard a woman in a
kiosk explaining how she’s putting herself through school (in Syria) for a
second degree, while working at a restaurant, until she can afford to open up
her own clinic. An elderly woman who was listening said, “Wow, look at you!
Working harder than men today!” The woman chuckled and said, “We don’t have
real men anymore and women are left picking up everyone’s slack on top of their
share.” I couldn’t help but laugh…loudly, and she turned to me. “Am I right?”
she asked. I smiled back and said, “Don’t even get me started.”
I’ve heard it time and
time and effin time again, that a truly secure strong man will not be
intimidated by a secure strong woman, but as logical as that sounds, the
question is are there any of those men around? This is rhetorical. Please don’t
bombard me with answers. Life is answer enough. I’m traveling and finding women
worldwide are struggling with this man-drought. My grandfather, may God bless
and protect him, seems to be the exception.
He folded his napkin,
like he usually does when he finishes breakfast, and said, “Well, I’m going to
get ready.” My mother and I both squealed. “Ready for what???” Calmly and so
casually he replied, “I’m heading to Damascus to handle some errands.” It was
the most adorable moment to capture, hearing this cute old man say that phrase
in that manner. “And what are these errands you are about to run, sir?” my
mother asked. He listed that there were a few things here and a few things
there. “Grandma, are you heading to Damascus today too?” I asked. She didn’t
look up from her phone (she was playing solitaire as she usually does—then she
scolds us when we even touch our phones LOL). “Not today.”
“Wait so grandpa is going
to town but you’re not?!?!” I asked surprised. My grandpa replied, “See, she
does this on purpose. When I want to go to the city, she doesn’t. When I don’t
want to go, she does. She always does this.” He was kidding with her to see if
he could get a reaction, but she was ignoring him, playing it cool, and keeping
up with her cards.
Damascus was about a 20-minute
drive from where we were staying on this trip—Yaafour—another area on the
outskirts of the city. The temperature was cooler and it was away from the
sounds of battle, or so we thought. Some days, they were still audible. But we
all agreed that getting my grandfather away from the city, the crowd and the
phobia he had of thinking he was surely going to need a hospital (a thought he
was constantly expressing after his fall) was best; and since there was a place
and availability, why not?
Slowly he made his way to
the stairs to get ready and he stopped. “Amal, don’t come with me, okay? Just
stay here and I’ll go by myself.” She kept her gaze on the phone and waved him
with his hand. “Bye Abdallah!” I see the vein of sass travels through
generations. I cracked up so loudly and my grandfather looked at me with a laugh.
“That’s how I get her! I have to use reverse psychology on this one,” and he
went on to go get ready. He dressed up in a white button up t-shirt, khaki
pants and a baseball cap. He was the epitome of adorableness. They both were
and they both made aging—living—seem like the greatest mission in life to
accomplish.
But there’s another side
to aging that is frightening or better stated, humbling. One night on this trip,
my grandmother called all of us in to their bedroom to say goodnight. My
grandfather was already in bed and she was slipping in. My mom, my aunt, my
cousin and I joined them on the bed and suddenly a kissing fight erupted,
thanks to my cousin and her charming sociable nature. She started harassing my
grandmother with kisses and then my aunt joined in, then my mom and I dove in headfirst.
My grandmother was
yelling at us to stop kissing her and to stop annoying her and to go away
already, that all she wanted was us to come say goodnight. Karma, haha! But
while my aunt and cousin continued smothering her with kisses, I turned and
found my mom in the arms of her dad. He was holding her like a father holding
his toddler—her head on his chest as he stroked her hair. I almost collapsed at
that humbling sight. Suddenly my grandfather was no longer my grandfather, nor
an old man in in his 90s, and my mother was no longer a mom, nor a woman in her
50s. They transformed into father and baby daughter and it was an utterly
inexplicable thing to witness.
It was like they had
escaped the current reality and entered a parallel mellow universe where
everything was how it used to be and I had to back up and soak in the reality,
the passage of time, the aging. We were three generations, connected by blood
and lineage, but at the moment connected by touch—him to her and her to me, and
it felt like this supernatural experience of literally watching the earth turn
in bittersweet pain.
Last year, my grandfather
thanked us for taking the risk to come and visit because he feared that it may
be the farewell visit. So when God graced us with another opportunity, he
wanted to savor every golden moment, so did we.
