Back home!!
In a few months of being away, how children change – growing up!
Their conversation has changed; the choice of words they learned to use, or not to use amuses me, and amazes too. When Naisha has become more logic and speaks of the little science she learned in school and relate it to the daily motion of life, Mariam has learned to express in words her emotions of heart more than before, and has become expressive of the little things that matters most to her.
Their expressions are different, changed!! They have hopes that they are able to communicate – Mariam do not want me to be with my laptop except when I have ‘homework’ as she put, and can’t understand why I have to be in Iraq when all her friends dad’s doesn’t have to!
What they laugh for, and why they become silent are all symbolic of their growth – the life I missed to experience! When did Mariam grew up to feel ‘shy’!
Physical expressions of love has become a matter of utmost importance to them, more than before; a hug is replenished every now and then with a heartfelt rhyming expression of ‘I love you Papa,’ and an affectionate kiss that fractures the cheek bone.
Whom we love, they love too. Whom we dislike, they dislike too – that’s how the solidarity is expressed, that we do not want what you do not want, and embrace what we embrace. Mariam’s typhoid has taken a toll on her, depriving her of the food she loves most and limiting her to the bare essentials! Our way of expressing our solidarity with her is to not have anything that she can’t, and wait till she will recover fully when she can then have all the chocolates and candies we bought! It tests Naisha’s patience, though perhaps it might also train her to be a person of values!
If I were to pray for one thing that I am sure of having granted as a boon, perhaps as any parent would, that would be to give me whatever illness and misfortunes that are destined for them, so that they are not tested by the brutality of life and are blessed to enjoy the spring and summer alike, for everything I endure is with their welfare alone in mind!
The soothing chants from the temple, the smell of spices and flowers in the air, the dynamic sound of life from the neighboring streets, Jaysree aunty's 'rasam' and all that and more, these alternate seasons of life is perhaps what life is all about - a constant experience of transition!!
Shahir
