There is a saying in Arabic that roughly translates to: the gates of heaven lie at the feet of your mother. A strange phrase, she always thought. Categorizing her mother alongside heavenly bodies, or notions of angels and eternal happiness was not something she could ever do. She loved her mother so much, but they often fought. The criticism and the insecurities and the doubt that slipped from her mother’s lips suffocated her.
They could be so happy sometimes. She would trudge home after a long commute and her mother would see the look of exhaustion on her face. She’d open her arms wide. Her warm embrace felt like floating on your back in an ocean, somehow fully at peace and not at all scared of any waves. Just calm.
There were other times where they’d be fine one moment, talking about cute guys on the street—but suddenly it was as if the woman beside her who had been laughing would become someone else. Someone who emerged whenever their happiness was at its peak, intent on making her daughter feel unloved and not good enough. She never expected this side of her mother. Like floating on your back in that ocean and then being hit by a sudden thunderstorm.
Her theory about why her mom was always so fluid in her emotions was that maybe she was just jealous of her relationship with her father. The man that she could have a normal conversation with—no shouting, no hurtful words. She grew up her entire life hearing people exclaim, “You are your father’s daughter.” She considered this to be a compliment and wore it as a badge of pride. Her friends would tell her that she was lucky to have a mom like hers. Her mother was always bubbly in public, never without a smile on her face, the “cool” mom.
She’d reply with things like, “Yeah, yeah… She’s great. You know who else is really cool? My dad. He’s always travelling to different countries. He buys me things. I only get to see him a few times a year cause he works somewhere else, but he really sees the best in me.”
She would repeat that like a mantra to anyone who cared to listen, letting people know that she definitely had a favourite parent. She never felt any regret saying those things. Never wondered if perhaps her mother was quietly listening.
18 years ago, when her daughter was first born, she was in labour for nearly 11 hours. Can you imagine 11 hours of pain? And before that, nine months of discomfort, mood-swings, and cravings for strange foods that she had never even thought about before?
But all those thoughts went away when her daughter was born. She wasn’t able to hold her newborn girl at first due to complications. Her baby was placed in an incubator for an entire week. Alone, in a prison of plastic and a jungle of tubes. She had severe blood loss. Her husband ran from hospital to hospital, looking for donors.
When she took her baby home for the first time, they decided to give her a name that represented how they felt—“a gift from God” is what her name translates to. Sometimes, she didn’t really act like a gift. She was fussy, she cried all the time, her face was swollen from crying all the time.
Time didn’t change anything. Her daughter was closer to her father, always choosing to sit in his lap during family dinners. Always crying when he wasn’t home. Always teaming up with him to play cute little pranks on their relatives.
At some point during these years, her husband was briefly arrested by Egyptian authorities. He, along with some journalist friends, had dared to voice his critiques of an unjust government. She had to take care of their three kids during this time, and it wasn’t easy answering their questions.
“Where’s Baba?” On a business trip. On a vacation. Visiting some relatives.
“When’s he coming back?” Soon. Maybe next week. Next month.
When the authorities finally released him, they made a collective decision to leave the country and go someplace safer. She packed up her clothes. She sold all of their furniture. She said goodbye to her family and her friends and her job as a teacher.
When they arrived in Canada, she tried to learn English as best as possible. She went to an ESL class. “I’m making so much progress,” she would say to herself. But then she would mispronounce a word, and her kids would make fun of her. She would sit alone, saying that same word over and over and over, trying to pronounce it the way they did. But it was hard for her tongue to change its patterns, to become accustomed to a new alphabet.
When her children asked for help on their homework, she was lost. She herself couldn’t understand. When she attempted to explain the inner workings of long division, her daughter would scoff and tell her “That’s not the way Mrs. Brown taught us.”
Time passed, as it always does. Her husband’s qualifications did not satisfy the standards of this new country, so he took a position overseas. She was left with her three children, a minimal understanding of how the country worked, and a lot of loneliness.
When her daughter was a teenager, they fought. It’s not like she wanted to fight with her, she just wanted so badly to protect her. Her daughter would wear a t-shirt in the middle of winter, and this is something that angered her—how dare she not protect herself from this weather? She was going to get sick, her body was fragile and so weak. And if she got sick, she would have to witness her baby girl sneezing, coughing, shivering, crying. Like a baby, alone in an incubator. She didn’t want to see her daughter like that ever again.
So she would yell at her. “Go upstairs and change right now.”
Her daughter would frown. “You can’t tell me what to do!”
She would reply, “Someday when you have a daughter of your own, you’ll understand.”
And her daughter would say, “Dad would never tell me to change. He loves me no matter what I wear. I never want to have a daughter if I treat her the way you treat me.”
It went on like this for years and years. They hurt each other, but then they would make up one morning over a cup of Turkish coffee. Then they would disagree about something trivial. One of them would make the other cry. There would be a half-apology, but that apology wasn’t good enough for one of them—so they would fight again. Ten minutes later, they’d both be in the kitchen warming up leftovers and laughing.
There is a saying in Arabic that roughly translates to: the gates of heaven lie at the feet of your mother. This is all she can think of during her mother’s funeral.
Strangers come up to her and give her hugs. They tell her she must have been so lucky to have a mother like hers. She agrees with every single one of them. She tells anyone who will listen about how brave her mother was, raising three children in a foreign country, seeing them at their best and at their worst.
At the end of the day, she still finds that phrase to be a little strange. She doesn’t really care about a distant continuation of life. If paradise exists, then great. But that place would never offer any the same happiness she felt when she and her mother would drink Turkish coffee together. To her, paradise didn’t lie at the feet of her mother, but rather in her arms. All of those memories of hugs and unconditional maternal love; all of the memories of trivial fights and unnecessary shouting, all the mispronounced words and all of their laughter. Sequenced together, they create something more precious than heaven could ever be: a portrait of her mother, as deep and as beautiful as an ocean.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|0px|29.3906px|0px” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.84″ inline_fonts=”Roboto,Roboto Mono,Alegreya,Noto Serif”]There is a saying in Arabic that roughly translates to: the gates of heaven lie at the feet of your mother. A strange phrase, she always thought. Categorizing her mother alongside heavenly bodies, or notions of angels and eternal happiness was not something she could ever do. She loved her mother so much, but they often fought. The criticism and the insecurities and the doubt that slipped from her mother’s lips suffocated her.
They could be so happy sometimes. She would trudge home after a long commute and her mother would see the look of exhaustion on her face. She’d open her arms wide. Her warm embrace felt like floating on your back in an ocean, somehow fully at peace and not at all scared of any waves. Just calm.
There were other times where they’d be fine one moment, talking about cute guys on the street—but suddenly it was as if the woman beside her who had been laughing would become someone else. Someone who emerged whenever their happiness was at its peak, intent on making her daughter feel unloved and not good enough. She never expected this side of her mother. Like floating on your back in that ocean and then being hit by a sudden thunderstorm.
Her theory about why her mom was always so fluid in her emotions was that maybe she was just jealous of her relationship with her father. The man that she could have a normal conversation with—no shouting, no hurtful words. She grew up her entire life hearing people exclaim, “You are your father’s daughter.” She considered this to be a compliment and wore it as a badge of pride. Her friends would tell her that she was lucky to have a mom like hers. Her mother was always bubbly in public, never without a smile on her face, the “cool” mom.
She’d reply with things like, “Yeah, yeah… She’s great. You know who else is really cool? My dad. He’s always travelling to different countries. He buys me things. I only get to see him a few times a year cause he works somewhere else, but he really sees the best in me.”
She would repeat that like a mantra to anyone who cared to listen, letting people know that she definitely had a favourite parent. She never felt any regret saying those things. Never wondered if perhaps her mother was quietly listening.
18 years ago, when her daughter was first born, she was in labour for nearly 11 hours. Can you imagine 11 hours of pain? And before that, nine months of discomfort, mood-swings, and cravings for strange foods that she had never even thought about before?
But all those thoughts went away when her daughter was born. She wasn’t able to hold her newborn girl at first due to complications. Her baby was placed in an incubator for an entire week. Alone, in a prison of plastic and a jungle of tubes. She had severe blood loss. Her husband ran from hospital to hospital, looking for donors.
When she took her baby home for the first time, they decided to give her a name that represented how they felt—“a gift from God” is what her name translates to. Sometimes, she didn’t really act like a gift. She was fussy, she cried all the time, her face was swollen from crying all the time.
Time didn’t change anything. Her daughter was closer to her father, always choosing to sit in his lap during family dinners. Always crying when he wasn’t home. Always teaming up with him to play cute little pranks on their relatives.
At some point during these years, her husband was briefly arrested by Egyptian authorities. He, along with some journalist friends, had dared to voice his critiques of an unjust government. She had to take care of their three kids during this time, and it wasn’t easy answering their questions.
“Where’s Baba?” On a business trip. On a vacation. Visiting some relatives.
“When’s he coming back?” Soon. Maybe next week. Next month.
When the authorities finally released him, they made a collective decision to leave the country and go someplace safer. She packed up her clothes. She sold all of their furniture. She said goodbye to her family and her friends and her job as a teacher.
When they arrived in Canada, she tried to learn English as best as possible. She went to an ESL class. “I’m making so much progress,” she would say to herself. But then she would mispronounce a word, and her kids would make fun of her. She would sit alone, saying that same word over and over and over, trying to pronounce it the way they did. But it was hard for her tongue to change its patterns, to become accustomed to a new alphabet.
When her children asked for help on their homework, she was lost. She herself couldn’t understand. When she attempted to explain the inner workings of long division, her daughter would scoff and tell her “That’s not the way Mrs. Brown taught us.”
Time passed, as it always does. Her husband’s qualifications did not satisfy the standards of this new country, so he took a position overseas. She was left with her three children, a minimal understanding of how the country worked, and a lot of loneliness.
When her daughter was a teenager, they fought. It’s not like she wanted to fight with her, she just wanted so badly to protect her. Her daughter would wear a t-shirt in the middle of winter, and this is something that angered her—how dare she not protect herself from this weather? She was going to get sick, her body was fragile and so weak. And if she got sick, she would have to witness her baby girl sneezing, coughing, shivering, crying. Like a baby, alone in an incubator. She didn’t want to see her daughter like that ever again.
So she would yell at her. “Go upstairs and change right now.”
Her daughter would frown. “You can’t tell me what to do!”
She would reply, “Someday when you have a daughter of your own, you’ll understand.”
And her daughter would say, “Dad would never tell me to change. He loves me no matter what I wear. I never want to have a daughter if I treat her the way you treat me.”
It went on like this for years and years. They hurt each other, but then they would make up one morning over a cup of Turkish coffee. Then they would disagree about something trivial. One of them would make the other cry. There would be a half-apology, but that apology wasn’t good enough for one of them—so they would fight again. Ten minutes later, they’d both be in the kitchen warming up leftovers and laughing.
There is a saying in Arabic that roughly translates to: the gates of heaven lie at the feet of your mother. This is all she can think of during her mother’s funeral.
Strangers come up to her and give her hugs. They tell her she must have been so lucky to have a mother like hers. She agrees with every single one of them. She tells anyone who will listen about how brave her mother was, raising three children in a foreign country, seeing them at their best and at their worst.
At the end of the day, she still finds that phrase to be a little strange. She doesn’t really care about a distant continuation of life. If paradise exists, then great. But that place would never offer any the same happiness she felt when she and her mother would drink Turkish coffee together. To her, paradise didn’t lie at the feet of her mother, but rather in her arms. All of those memories of hugs and unconditional maternal love; all of the memories of trivial fights and unnecessary shouting, all the mispronounced words and all of their laughter. Sequenced together, they create something more precious than heaven could ever be: a portrait of her mother, as deep and as beautiful as an ocean.
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