Cold days in the winter of beautiful Basrah in Iraq, it was a beautiful era with no traffic jam and no shortage of houses, in its summer you could smell the scent of palm pollen and the fragrance of the night-blooming jasmine, in its winter you could smell the scent of citrus blossoms from orange and lemon, playing and jumping, my brothers, sisters and I, were all sparrows but did not fly, it was the 1960s.
My mother sometimes raised her voice at us, sometimes begged us to eat, sometimes asked us to be quiet, we all agreed on one thing: “When would our father come home?”
My father, who didn’t
love my father! For he was dignified, venerable, generous, and affectionate, who didn’t ask me about my father! Who didn’t envy me for my father! For he was my father, and no one else, they all admired my father– my mother, my brothers, my sisters, my friends, my teachers, the grapes in our garden, the great mulberry trees that carried us daily on their shoulders, never tired of us and never bothered by our eating of their black and honey-colored berries, and the cold breezes asked us about my father, even the stars and the darkness of the night–the whole world asked about my father.
We were all around my mother, waiting for dinner and watching the big television, waiting for my father, every moment we stared at the large, luxurious, iron door of our house, decorated with glass and copper, for at any moment my father would enter and we would race to embrace his big palms and say to him at the top of our voices, “May Allah bless you, Dad”.
In moments of waiting and calm, moments of longing and yearning for my father.
A scene on the television caught our attention, his condition was strange, was he wrestling or negotiating with an illusion, something was happening I did not know what it was, the man’s breaths grew faint, his speech stopped, a kind peaceful person who suddenly calmed down and became still.
I asked my mother: what was wrong with him? Why didn’t he speak? Why did he close his eyes like this? My mother answered me: because he died, and my older brothers mocked my question and my ignorance of the matter, and I insisted on my mother, what (died) and what did that mean? So she answered me in confusion and did not know an easy answer that my childhood could understand, so she said he died, his time came and he died, then she said God took his soul, God took his soul, so I answered her with indescribable bewilderment “What? And who caused it and what is this soul?”.
So her confusion increased and she decided to divulge harsher information for there was no escape from my questions and my insistence, she knew my stubbornness from my young age but she was ignorant of what I was thinking, ignorant of what went on in my mind and what went on in my heart for I was thinking of my father, she was ignorant of everything about me, so, might the cursed death apply to my father too? And I showered my mother with my questions, one question, then another question, then another question, she didn’t understand my intent which my intent was my father.
So how could I keep away from him that who was described with death? And quickly I asked her how does a human die? So my mother tried to simplify her answers to the utmost degree so she answered, “A human dies after gray hair appears on his head.” so I fell silent and what a silence it was, and all my concern became when my father would arrive so I could examine his head, hoping there was no gray hair in his head.
And my heartbeats raised for the first time in my life and I felt my temperature rising and I waited and waited for when my father would arrive.
And finally my father arrived, and for the first time I did not rush to him and relinquish the honor of embracing his palm and playing with his fingers, but I waited fearfully near the seat designated for him, and my brothers’ joyful broke out and they raced with the shout, “May Allah bless you, Dad!” and for the first time they beat me to it.
As for me I waited for the moment of his approach and as soon as my father sat I examined his head, and Oh, the horror of what I saw!” For my father’s head had gray hair.
Everything in my body froze, I did not know what to do with this hateful death that is coming soon, just as gray hair appears, and this is my father, and how could I save him, I did not know, I did not know.
So, I rushed to my bed crying a strange cry that I still remember till now, as if tears came out from the middle of my chest, and I asked myself and asked myself, “When will my father die?”
I had no answer, and no one else did either. I was so lost in confusion, I felt I would die of it without ever needing gray hair to fill my head.
Afraid and trembling in my dark, terrifying room, I was peering into death, trying to comprehend it, I heard my father asking about me and the reason for my absence. Then I heard my mother reply; I was amazed, for she truly understood what was on my mind, knew me so well, and understood everything about me, as she informed my father of all that was churning within my soul, my heavy grief after seeing the gray hair on his noble head, and how I had finally surrendered to the certainty that he would die.”
Suddenly, the door of my room burst open, filling the space with sunrise and happiness, and with the beautiful, affectionate, hearty voice of my father calling out “Habibi, how are you my son?”, as he sat on the edge of my bed, sensing the depth of my grief over him, wiping away my tears with his warm palms, lifting me into a tight embrace, and showering me with kisses that matched the depth of my buried grief; then we went out in the car, just the two of us, leaving the others behind, deprived of his warmth at the dinner table, we went out despite his fatigue and exhaustion, for my father knew no limits to his kindness and affection for us, and he never knew tiredness when it concerned his children.
We wandered through the darkness of the night, in the narrow, beautiful, shadow-streaked, light-dappled street of Basrah, and he began to talk with me in his usual brilliant way, as if he were fully prepared for this daunting confrontation, as if he had studied the situation for years.
A discussion, open and transparent, that cost my father an eternity of time, and weights of effort, emotion, and grief–a discussion in which I witnessed the hardest conversation my father would ever face; a discussion between the greatest man and the smallest child on earth.
So he did not lie, nor did he deny that accursed death. He spoke gently running his fingers through my hair and tracing my cheeks, showering me with kisses–kisses of an early farewell. In those moments, I could feel his profound gratitude for the immense love I held for him.
To buy himself some time and gather his strength in the face of this heavy moment, he pulled over and bought me some salted biscuit from the only shop open at that late hour.
He told me frankly that everyone would die, and that he would die too, and after I grew up, had children of my own, and my hair turned gray, death would catch up with me as well, and then my children would die, and so on. His words and logic didn’t quiet me; I kept crunching on my biscuit while my tears raced down, mixing their salty taste with the flavor of the biscuit. With a trembling voice, blending with a tender sob I could neither hide nor stop, I asked him once more “Did that mean you would die, Baba?”
The discussion ended with the conclusion that everyone would die, we returned, and my small palm was lost inside his big palm. The house was quiet and dark. As everyone had gone to his bed in preparation for a new day.
He put me back in my bed with a gift of money as was my father’s habit and the generosity that always preceded him.
I hugged the box of biscuit, for it was a precious gift from my father, and I slept crying, still without an answer to: “When will my father die?”.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Zaid