Kan Yama Kan (1) (Reflections‪)‬

These were the opening lines to all of her stories. Night after night, I waited for her to repeat them. They marked the continuation of our story-telling ritual, a ritual whose memories I kept alive within me, recalling them on those occasions when our ritual was interrupted, be it by my residence in that accursed boarding school in Beirut, be it by my family's prolonged absence from Beirut during its years of civil war, or be it by what she regards as my never-ending years of ghorbeh in North America. In between these absences, we resumed our ritual, turning all our nights together into an uninterrupted stream of tales--tales and memories. I remember my eyes following her every move in anticipation of that moment when her body would take leave of the household chores, when her wrinkled hand would hold onto mine, when from her even more wrinkled lips those opening lines would pour out. Not once did their repetition arrest my yearning for the tales and the memories that followed. Not once did I waver in my desire to hear her repeat them, for she repeated these lines with such spontaneity and emotional immediacy that each time they sounded new. These opening lines etched themselves on my memory. They became an invisible cord connecting me to her, to Sa'sa'. "Our bond is special," she used to whisper in my ear. It is not just blood that connects me to her; it is not just the love for the father/son that binds us. Our bond is indeed special: it's made of stories which stir memories--and memories transmuting into stories. Through them, she is always present, no matter the distance and the circumstances separating us. Some stories I must have heard many times before, some were new or sounded new, while others changed characters, locations or dates. "Our bond is special," I whisper into the phone, praying that her ears, her body a million miles away, will feel the tingling I felt in mine each time she whispered them to me. I put down the handset, my hand caressing it, and repeat to myself her always-same closing line: Toto toto, matfakri, ya siti, khilsat hal-hatoto.