2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, What's the difference?

English

As I lingered on Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere last night, the scene of a Turkish soap appeared on the TV screen a few meters away from me. A little boy and a woman are in a corridor of what seems to be a school. I was not paying real attention but I noticed the woman crying as she walked away from the boy. The music was cheesy, the acting nauseating and the whole scene hardly mediocre. Then I heard the boy's little Syrian-dubbed* voice which makes the acting look even worse (if that is possible) cry "Mama, don't leave me Mama". But the mother left anyway, abandoning her son standing there in what we understood to be an orphanage (or something like that). 

And I burst into tears. It could have been the worst drama for television ever and yet, I cried. This third trimester is making me even more hormonal than usual it seems. I keep crying for nothing. And everything.

* Turkish drama series are currently very popular in the Arab world. The Arabic versions are dubbed in Syria, in modern Syrian dialect and accent. 

  

Rouba Abouzeid

I'll be blunt: 2011 was a bitch. Ditching it with no regret. 2012, I'm warning you: You better make it up to us! Be good!

 ·  · Share · December 31, 2011 at 5:56pm near Hamra, Beyrouth

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Things have not been easy these past couple of years. From loosing pregnancies to loosing loved ones, most of whom were way too young to leave, I must say no new year celebration was about to make me perky any more. 

It feels like we are just counting the days now. And praying the last tragedy remains exactly that: the last. 

Back in college, when I used to feel blue, I would sit on one of the benches facing the nursery in our campus. Children will always warm hearts. They can make you feel good instantly. They can halt time for a little while and turn everything brighter. 

Mia has that magical power too. And I am so grateful for her. 

But what do you do when pain is so excruciating, it becomes immune, even to the purest magic there is?

I recently learnt a dear friend of mine lost her husband some time in December 2010. It was around the holidays and I had just given birth. Living in different countries did not make it easy keeping in touch at such chaotic times and I am ashamed to say I only heard about her affliction a few weeks ago in the cruelest of accidents. I was greeting her and her family on the holidays, and asked her to pass my sincere regards to her husband. 

She would not speak. She simply could not. I had to find out from her sister. And I could not bring myself to ask for details because I knew she was due to give birth around that same time in 2010 and it is very possible her daughter never met her dad. I will probably know soon enough. I am not sure I want to. Not that it would change anything in that little girl's life anyway. 

Tragic would be an understatement to describe what happened to this family.

The few words this woman speaks, her silences, everything about her is heartbreaking. She cannot find any meaning in the midst of all this absurdity. She cannot find a reason for her senseless existence. Even though she has three beautiful children, God Bless them. Whom she loves more than life itself. And yet, even a year later, these wonderful blessings cannot begin to fill the void in her heart and her life. She is empty. Simply.

How can she cope? 

How can she bring herself to live?

Grieving.

Living.

Nothing makes sense.

And nothing matters, really.

Life is nothing but that fragile tease that we all get stuck with without our consent and which is taken away from us in that same selfish way.

I was always certain the hardest challenge in life was to be able to adjust to the people around us. It turns out, it is even harder to adjust to those who are not there. 

And so these days, I have been remembering loved ones. Beautiful souls who departed before their time. Touching lives brought to an end abruptly. Cruelly.  

And so these days, I have been crying a little. 

So this one is for you... Jeddo, Teta, Sayoudeh, Ziad, Saadeh, Hussam, Fadi, Ghassan, Yasser, Naddouza, Wassim and all the others we were forced to say goodbye to throughout the years. 

This one is also for those left behind. Us. Our pain. A friend of mine wrote a beautifully dolorous tribute to her late mother a few days ago. I would like to share it with you here because these days, I feel a little like her. Isn't it ironic how all human beings are equal in suffering?

They say the holidays are the toughest and most depressing times in a year. Apparently it is when sadness manages to take over the most. 

It will pass. 

Everything passes, eventually.


Still hoping for a wonderful 2012 and wishing everyone good health and love in abundance!

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