I can’t believe your streets are hollow while people hide in
basements and attics or flee across borders… I miss you, as I am sure thousands
of your other children do.
I remember my dad taking me to Bab Touma and Kassah, where
he grew up, and taking us through the streets and shops, retracing the footsteps
he used to take to school and my mom showing us her university campus in Aleppo
where she would spend hours finishing up her architecture projects and where
she used to buy a sandwich from every time she was hungry… I remember eating “sabbarah” after a
tis’eeyeh dinner at Tric Trac café at Le Meridian hotel, then having provenceal
style frog legs for lunch at the Shallal. I even remember that odd restaurant
called “the Station” the best escalope of my life. I wonder what happened to
that one waiter that served at the restaurant for the eight or so years we used
frequent in our visits. Is he still alive? I remember going to the monastery where my uncle lives
nestled in the heart of Tellal, one of the popular market streets, attending
mass with the Armenian Syrians gathered up in Sunday mass in the church just
beside the monastery… I couldn’t then believe why my uncle would come back to
Syria when he had the option to stay in Italy. I couldn’t believe it because I
was too young to understand what it means to love your country with all its
cracks and holes.
I remember standing from my grandparents’ balcony, on Baghdad
street, overlooking the park and
my grandpa would just stare out into the hot summer day, polluted with diesel
fuel and car horns. I miss those yellow decorated cabs with the sarcastic cab
drivers and hearing some old guy in a tattered beanie yelling “JABBBASS”
(watermelon in Allepo dialect) as he pulled the half broken carriage from a
donkey. I miss the sound of the church bells and the call to prayer from the
mosque that stood in their magnificent pride side by side. I don’t know when I
will stand on that balcony again…
I am sorry for all the times I thought you did not live up
to “western” standards, for making fun of you for having “Cheer up” instead of
“7Up”. Forgive me for calling you backward in the face of modern society. Being
unique and different was a flaw to me, now I see it as beautiful. Forgive me Syria,
I was only a kid. Forgive your children who abandoned you many years ago, those
who couldn’t live out their dream under a single “house” had no choice but to
make a home on foreign soil…
Come back to us stronger and more
beautiful. Keep your solidarity and pride. I know my parents and grandparents’
heart aches to watch you suffer as you bury your children in the land they call
home. I am sorry you had to watch history take its toll on your soil once more…
but I hope this is the last time. I hope the future brings you peace and
serenity. I hope it restores the comradeship that Syrians once had for each
other. I hope you blossom once more, Damascus you beautiful rose.
Love always,
Celine
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