The Second Memory

Still the same day, still the same arrangement and my dad is still telling us about the hardest moments, there comes a second one when I see another tear… It is a story about one of my aunt’s…. My dad was in prep school back then. He was attending his uncle’s wedding with my grandpa and grandma. Back at home my aunt ‘N’ was left with their neighbors since she was badly ill… Anyways, the neighbor was supposed to give her a medicine at a certain hour and when that hour drew closer my dad started getting worried…. He thought it would be better if he went back home and made sure his sister got her medicine on time…

He tried to get to my grandma who was in the middle of the crowd talking to people but he couldn’t… What he needed was money to go back home… That didn’t stop him though, that is my dad, nothing would ever stop him from achieving what he aims at… He starts walking his way home… A good distance but he is determined to make it to where he wants to be….
When he arrived at home, he knocked the neighbors door and apparently when he asked her if she gave my aunt the medicine she said she forgot… He was ten minutes late so it didn’t make a difference… My dad tells me he tried to give her the medicine when his sister who was below two years of age nodded with her head and refused to take it as she smiled a smile that my dad described to me as some sort of an unspoken, “Don’t worry.”

My dad was still a kid, almost ten or eleven so it isn’t his fault anyways…. The night passed by and the wedding was over and everyone slept for the night and things seemed fine and dandy… The next morning my dad left for school and had a normal day until he came back home… While going up the stairs to their flat, my grandpa was walking down the stairs carrying the dead body of a one and a fraction years old girl… My aunt…

My dad always thought if she lived she would have been the sweetest and most tender of all his sisters and he talks of her in a way that makes me tell he loved her more than any other sibling he had….

I was able to see another tear in his eyes…. My dad is the best family man ever… He was eleven when he wanted to take care of a younger sister, he was a kid and he had it in him… I wish I could be like him and I wish I would make him real proud….

That was the day when I knew that nothing was ever wrong with my dad’s eye… That was the day I knew that my dad was just stronger than the rest of the herd, strong enough to have lots of feelings and yet be able to keep the pain to himself when he has to because he has to lead whether as an eldest brother or as a loving father…. He always has the lead….

A few days ago before my dad left to Cairo on his vacation he told me that when people grow older they get softer in the heart, things that never used to show can be seen and feelings that never used to be there are discovered… He told me that as we grow older in age our tears tend to flow with more ease and that we get to unbear less hurt than we used to bear…. He told me that if anything ever harmed or hurt one of us, be it me, my bro, my two sisters or my mom he would not bear to live a single day and I believed him….

I miss you Dad….
And I guess here comes my tears….

To Possibilities…..

Two memories…..

Before I start, I would like to mention that the idea of first times is not mine, it has been stolen from Miss Cerise… I hope it is fine with you… Yet I am not gonna go and list many of my first times… And if I plan to I would like to detail the story for each first time, I would dedicate an entire blog to it… But well this first time is a memory I always have, maybe it is one of the memories that have stuck to my head and since I am all depressed with my dad being in Cairo I would like to have a small talk about him….

So I am a kid, I get hurt I cry, I fall I cry, I get yelled at I cry, this is what I do and well my mother usually cried being the sensitive person she is… I remember that I was told that once when I was around the age of ten I walked up to my dad and asked him if something was wrong with his eyes. Well he had to ask me for a reason for my question and to his surprise my answer was, “Cause I never see you cry.”

What kind of kid is so sadistic to the extent that he wanna see his dad cry. I mean come on that is a weird need of mine that was really hard to be satisfied by my dad. Until one time when I was in highschool, I sat along with my dad and my sister while my mother was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and he started telling us about some stories from the past and then I asked him about the hardest moments in his life, the most moving ones, until then I never saw my dad shed a tear…

My dad told me how he was here in UAE when my grandpa and grandma got into a car accident on the Cairo-Ismaeliya highway (Egypt) and how he didn’t know about it when he got a telegram from my aunt’s husband who went like ‘Please come to Egypt soon, there’s some problem with your parents.”

I know that kind of message was kinda caring but comeon coming to think of it he scared the crap out of my dad anyways and left him to face the shock when he got to Cairo…. When my dad arrived at Cairo my uncle was waiting for him and he drove him to Suez and as he arrived there my eldest aunt told him the bad news… My grandpa was dead… He died before they could even move him from the car. My second to the eldest aunt (They are the only two older than my dad) also died in the accident and she was pregnant with her third baby…

So basically two girls are motherless and my dad has lost the person he loves most in the world, his father. He then had to ask about my grandma and my aunt told him she is hanging there but her health is deteriorating… My father took the news and asked for the reason why they didn’t drive him to the hospital and my aunt replied saying that she didn’t want him to see my grandma kind of deformed because of the accident because he wouldn’t bear seeing her that way. My dad then asked to go to wherever she was to see her but then they told him that she was in a hospital in Ismaeliya (Totally different city)… Why the fuck would they drive him to the family house in Suez if my grandma was lying in a hospital in a totally different city?

Anyways after a lot of convincing my aunt and uncle did my dad agreed to stay for the night and then visit her and hit the road the next morning to see her… By the time he arrived there she was dead and it was time to go for a burial… My dad told us the story and he had a tear in his eye, it was the first time ever.. I mean come on he must have cried sometime in the past but this time is the first I have ever heard of or saw with my naked eye… It wasn’t even crying anyways they were just a couple of tears but with a deep breath and very hard feelings that could be seen in the pale smile on his face as he said, “While they were crashing I was playing cards with my friends over here.”

Well my grandpa is missed, I was below the age of two when he died but I have been told not only by my dad but by my aunts and uncles too that I was his favorite grandson, I was the first in the blood line to carry on with the name of the family and over that i was the first born of his favorite and most obedient of all his children and my grandpa had nine of those… I was the son of the the son who made my grandpa proud more than anyone else did or could’ve and I am proud to be this man’s grandson and that man’s son…

And by the way the car my grandpa was driving when he died was my dad’s car and my dad never wanted the car back and left it out on the highway until it was stolen piece by piece…..

May my grandpa’s grave be like paradise to him….
اللهم اجعل قبور المؤمنين روضة من رياض الجنة

To be continued….

Here’s to possibilities…..

The Meaning of Having a Parent….

Wednesday, July 12, 2006
It is a Wednesday (working day) but I already took the day off for some personal tobacco related reasons…

09:30 am – Woke up, took a shower, got dressed.

09:50 am – Prepared a mug of coffee and smoked a couple of ciggarretes.

10:15 am – Left for my 11:00 am errand in Dubai.

11:10 am – Arrived ten minutes late to my errand.

11:15 am – Met with that guy (Half Egyptian, Half Swiss, knows not a single word in Arabic) and discussed certain stuff… It was a nice meeting, I felt the deal was going on great and everything was fine.

12:10 am – Met with the other guy (Lebanese -Doesn’t have that problem with adding french and english to all his sentences – Pretty weird for the usual). Again that meeting went fine.

12:40 am – Stepped out of the premises.

12:45 pm – Called my dad and told him how things went and asked him if he is still in the office.

01:00 pm – Arrived at Moulin D’or Bakerty and restaurant in Karama – Dubai, where I had my lunch, A Chicken Shawerma Sandwich and a plate of Kabab and Kofta with the whole Salad ordeal (Was really hungry)…

01:45 am – I was done with lunch, I was stuck in my chair watching Nancy’s Video ‘Moghrama’ followed by ‘Boos Elwawa’ Video performed by the hot, sexy Haifa Wahby.

01:50 pm – Walked into the institute, said hi to Miss ‘E-admin’ who was in Kish (Iran) changing visa for 19 days (Problems with Dubai Immigration and Residence Authority caused the delay) and well I have two hours plus until I get to walk into my lecture.

02:00 pm – Walked into the language Department and said hi to Miss ‘M’ who happens to be a very nice person with a beautiful, pretty nice 7-years old daughter whom I love to keep playing with, you know I am a fan of having kids all around…. Well the daughter was not there this time…

02:01 pm – Noticed that Miss ‘E-Sales was sitting in the language department said my hellos and it was all fun making jokes all around the place.

02:30 pm – Walked into Business Training Room ‘2′ printed the saturday CMA Part 1 test for my candidates, walked out to the reception made photo copies gave them to Miss ‘E-Admin’ asked her to put the test on schedule for Saturday.

03:00 pm – Started socializing with people all around (Way too much free time).

03:30 pm – Felt a severe headache, decided to cancel my 07:00 pm class and go for the 04:00 pm class only.

03:45 pm – Called my dad who already got on board of his flight to Cairo and that is when it hit me, today after I am done with the lecture my dad is not gonna call me to ask me if I am done and ask me how it went and we would start making the usual jokes.

04:00 pm – You know lecture time… Gave the lecture and the fucking headache is elevating..

04:40 pm – Finished lecturing, got a cup of coffee and went for a smoke, socialized with Mr. ‘L’ who usually seems weird to me but seemed pretty nice at that moment.

06:45 pm – Talked to Miss ‘H’ who told me that she has three clients confirmed to attend my 07:00 pm class (which I cancelled) for demo, and I promised to stay for a special one hour demo class for her clients.

07:15 pm – Met Mr. ‘R’s’ client to discuss with him whom I didn’t know was coming but I did so based on the request of Miss ‘E’ Sales who saw he had some trouble with English and he is an Arab so I am better working off the conversation with him than she would be.

07:30 pm – Tried to call my dad to make sure he arrived to Cairo safely, his mobile was still switched off.

07:35 pm – Walked to the reception to find the sweet ‘H’ waiting with her clients and I asked them into the class along with Mr. ‘R’s’ client, an additional act of goodness on my side that was appreciated later on.

08:20 pm – Demo session completed, stayed to help with the weird Arab clients and then went out to dinner with the very sweet ‘H’, the teary ‘E-Sales’ and the weirdly funny since she came back from Kish ‘E-Admin’ and the funny Mr. ‘A’ and the annoying Miss ‘S’, surely after I was thanked by Mr. ‘R’, love the appreciation.

09:30 pm – Walked everone whom, last was Miss ‘H’ who seemed weird all day long, knew the reason later on, she is a very sweet person.

Well during the dinner I called my dad to make sure he arrived safely and that is the whole point of this story, it was like, O’ Dad, where art thou? I miss him so much, I always get that feeling that I am never gonna see him again when he travels, my old man is almost 60 years of age and I hate that feeling….

Well I am sitting at dinner and I am holding my tears, I am calling to make sure he arrived at Cairo safely, today there is change and not the kind of change I love, that kind that I really hate. It is like today I didn’t hear that special ringtone on my mobile that tells me even before I look that my dad is calling to check on me. Yeah I am 25 and yeah I am not a little child but with your parents you are always still the child and they keep feeding you that feeling and you keep loving it cause you know someone cares…

I called my Dad later on and cried over the phone (The Emperor is like a girl, Ha Ha Ha, funny joke), I felt like I wanna be with them back home in Cairo what’s with everyone crying cause they miss their parents right after an overseas phone call. Be it me or be it ‘E-Sales’ or ‘H’ we all have feelings, and I am not a fucking girl for feeling so you freaks…

The day went down the drain I felt like everything is going wrong except for that dinner, those people made me laugh and made my day feel a lot better except for the annoying person who was very rude during dinner whom I think of as pretty weird and disregarding of the people sitting around the same table… Now that wasn’t nice… That was pretty weird actually….

Thanks guys for the fun night and dinner, you made me feel better and Dad, yo man, I really miss you and miss that jokes, may I never lose you and if you ever had to go may my day preceed yours…..

Today the 13th I just realized that whatever love I think I have for my parents is nothing compared to the real love I do have to them and two my two sisters and my brother, today I realized that nothing else would replace them, today I realized that I can always miss them more than I think I could…. Today I woke up to know that I am here in Dubai all alone and they are there in Egypt missing me too…..

Let’s all celebrate the fact that we have them around in our lives and if they are gone for someone let’s hope them the best in the next eternal life, Let’s wish them Paradise….

To My Dad,
To the group of friends gathered around the dinner table at Moulin D’or
And to hope and possibilities….