A letter to my best friend ...in Syria
Today, as i was watching a dramatic episode of my favorite TV show where the main character was saying her farewells to her best friends, in a very emotional scene, I felt an awkward moist in my eyes (WAIT what’s that? lol ) it reminded me of how deeply I hate good-byes, how deeply I loath departure , the amount of pain and torment that my little heart feels when a loved one is leaving (or me leaving in most cases!) a person you might never lay eyes on ever again.
I hate that, I hate the fact that i have to carry this scar with me everywhere even when doing a task as simple as watching a TV show!.
They say“practice makes perfection”, naah sweety noo!!!, not in case of good-byes . When it comes to farewells, in my experience at least, it’s more of an inverse relationship then a direct one; they never get easier down the aisle and you cant get better at it as you age.
It was a tense moment and i don’t know, I don’t know what got into me I suddenly thought of you!.
I rushed to my closet, grabbed that old greenish poem note book that you gave me as a present long time ago (which I seldomly go through due to the heavy memories it brings back) I stared at our picture together while we were smiling innocently, revelling with energy that streaked us out from our classmates and made us the exceptional people we were, not knowing what the future hold for us, not worrying anyway, just enjoying the bliss of our moments back then.
Suddenly, I noticed there he was, a picture of BASHAR AL ASAD hanged behind our backs smiling creepily!. I felt my mind thrumming with anger. All of a sudden, my heart dropped between my legs with trepidation when a horrifying thought passed my mind.
I try to put my thoughts at ease, but i can’t help but to ask myself some terrifying questions. I can’t direct them to you for the simple reason, I have lost contact with you.
How have you been? (What a dumb question I knowwww), Do you have children now? Are you still living in Doma, did you finish your law degree; I am sure you would make a fierce lawyer. We never saw this coming, did we? We never expected or foresaw our beloved Syria coming down to this. To ashes, to mere rocks and blood sheds.to broken childhood and the catastrophe of this century But shit happens right?..
I remember vividly the first time you fall in love, I remember us taking those long walks around the streets of Qowatli to Kornish street all the way around Al noor hospital making detour walks around the city and never feeling the time fleeing by because we were so deeply drown in our conversations.
I remember how you fought fiercely for your education when your dad refused that you continue your education past ninth grade , how you used to work hard after school in tailoring just to afford your school uniform, and later on your sister’s. Luckily school books were free!
You possessed abundance of courage, you were amazingly thoughtful and it was the non-conformity in you that made you the outstanding girl you were all along in high school. We were friends, we were dreamers, and together we were conquerors; no limits or circumstances, no ceilings or restrictions, no borders or boundaries could stop us. Yes, we were conquerors.
Do you remember our little adventure, on that rainy day, when we skipped college, went all the way to Damascus for you to see your judge lover?, I was there to witness your first heart break, our first heart break, we wade through it together and merged out like the conquerors we were.
After Al-Noor college you went to law school, I went to engineering.....I moved to Damascus, you stayed in Doma and fall again in love this time with a Doctor, I was there again to witness all the action, all the dope feelings, but this time via the phone. No break up occurred this time because you ended up marrying him. Hurraaay!!!!
You witnessed firsthand what happened in our beloved Douma, all the air strikes and raining bomb shells over your heads, the ethnic cleansing that took place especially in Douma , that you and your families were subjected to just because you were Muslim Sunnis.
Before the war, we never knew those differences. Which city was Alawi or Sunni or Christians, we were all Syrians just one fabric, with the same daily struggles and concerns, with the same enemy. Young men were obliged to take a military training after 21, but to protect our country from outside enemy right?? Its true war brings out the worst in humans, no sorry, war turns humans into ugly monsters. Yes monsters.
All those harrowing images of stabbed, shot, burned and butchered people you and my other friends and families in Douma witnessed them nearby or maybe one of your family members was a martyr, you witnessed the destruction of a city that you were born in and lived your whole life. I will never imagine or fathom how painful is that!!
Though, me and my family fled the country before the war begins, I sometimes, feel guilty for leaving. (they call it survival’s guilt) For enjoying all those nice moments in Syria with my Syrian families and never having to go through all those horrible scenes you underwent, I feel like a traitor. Isn’t for better or worse together?? I left before the worse came!
My love for Syria was always unconditional and still is, you know that. That’s why I feel paralyzed, I feel helpless, and I feel heartbroken. And I will never recover from it. The pain is so unbearable that I had to put my defence mechanisms at work, denial in particular, so I hate watching news, I hate knowing what’s happening there, I num myself in order to forget. But i can never forget, because a big part of my identity and who I am is Syrian, a lot of memories, a lot of friends, a lot of food, a lot of beautifully stunning places, a lot of books I read there..How can I block all those things I hold so dearly in my heart, how can I delete all of that? deleting means deleting all Asia from existence. Yes all of me!
I am so aghast and terrified to ask myself and forgive me for asking . Are you still alive?
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Your best friend, Asia.
