Chapter 1
On Her Voice
Introduction
Today, I am twenty-five years old. I blow again on the candles, perhaps it will light my way to my dream. I hope that these candles do not go out, and their light remains eternal. I carry in my hope, and I am sure that I will meet with my dream soon, I feel it. Great despair surrounds me because I do not know what my reaction will be when I would reach my goal.
I want to argue with her, to scream out loud until I would lose my voice. Will my screams be enough to reach my message to her? Even if my message was received, why did she left me and she did not feel horrible to come back and see me? Many questions gnaw at my heart, and I do not know what to do to silence it. I always ask myself, why am I facing all this, what is the wisdom behind it? The pain has exhausted all my cells.
Chapter One
I woke up to my life. I was born from an unknown, and I saw only one hand extended to me, who was my grandmother. The first day of my life, was the day of goodbyes, as my mother told me a forever goodbye. It was my first night in this world, and if I were mature when I was a few hours old, I would not let her leave. It was the first and last time my mother stayed by my side. She left forever, like a spectrum which has passed from here and never came back. I was eight months old when I spoke my first word which was ‘Tata’ and means grandmother in the Palestinian slang language. It is not strange that I did not say the word ‘mama’ as the first word, because she was never with me. She missed the first word I spoke, and she was the reason that I did not say mama as the first word like most kids. She missed my teeth growing when I completed the six months and my first steps in trying to walk when I became a year and two months. She was not there to see all these details, but my grandmother did.
My father died before my birth, and my mother was then in her fifth month. My father’s name was Salem because he gave me the opportunity to live and then died. He died because of Cancer, but my grandfather died because his hour had come to die. My grandfather was eighty-sixed years old, May God have mercy on him.
I did not know about all these things until I began to realize what life is and understanding that there is emptiness in my life that needs to be full. My grandmother told me all those things, about the death of my father and my grandfather and about my childhood, but she never answered me whenever I asked her about my mom. She only told me what happened to me, each time I missed my mother, but she never told me her name or any information about her. I had only one picture for my father and one for my grandfather. My father was a tall black man, with eyes that are as black as night. My father’s picture was in one of the demonstrations in the city of Ramallah. In the picture, he was carrying the Palestinian flag, and wearing the Palestinian scarf. In the picture, he seemed to cheer with the highest voice, from the expression of his face. My grandfather’s picture was in front of our house where we now live. His hair was gray, and his beard was light and gray too. The signs of aging have taken their toll on the features of his face, and the lines have drawn their way to show how much age he spent on the earth.
When I was little, I often cried for the loss of my mother’s tenderness, and each time I cried out, my grandmother used the radio so I would sleep on the voice of the singer, who we had no songs but for her. I was exhausted by tears, and I became so tired that I end up sleeping for hours.
I joined the kindergarten next to our house, and fortunately, it was only five minutes away from our home. I often ran away from that place, to come back with my eyes full of tears. My grandmother pats on my shoulders and embraces me after she turns on the radio, and every time she succeeds in relieving my inner pain. I had two friends, but that was not enough to relieve me. Most of the times I preferred to sit alone. I was four years old, but my mind was in its twenties. I was aware of everything; and I sometimes pretend to be stupid, as not to eliminate misery. Those in my age are just learning the alphabet, but I learned to be unable of achieving anything at the age of four, and the alphabet has patted my brain cells. The kids, who are in the kindergartens with me, cry if another kid took their toy. But I cry for the loss of more valuable things than a toy. The toy is nothing but a tool without a soul that children have fun with, without knowing what future calamities are hidden, but I have realized those calamities before them.
