The Eternal Tears
Two things have always made me cry! Every time my mind wanders back and remembers the moments when I experienced or felt them, my tears roll on my cheeks.
These two things take their sources from a feeling of powerlessness that transforms into frustration and then develops into rage, followed by tears.
Two things I must bear and live with despite my strongest desire and my relentless, yet unsuccessful, attempts to forget them or at least overcome their effect on me.
These two things do not haunt my days and nights. They are dwelling in the back of my mind, until certain conditions become present, then, like a dormant volcano which suddenly awakes, they erupt into my imagination, take hold of my consciousness, and start shaking the gates of my heart. The conditions that make this eruption happen are grounded in a feeling of happiness, typically after a long run or bike ride on a Saturday afternoon, or a state of peace of mind on a summer vacation day, coupled with a longing to enjoy this happiness and this peace of mind with someone else and in a different place from where I happen to be when I feel them.
The first instance that draws bitter tears of sorrow from my soul is when I picture, for few seconds, the bewildered look that I saw few times on the face of my father. This look that he used to have whenever he was overwhelmed by a situation or an emotion, trying all he can to do something about it but not succeeding, or at least thinking or feeling that he is not succeeding. In these situations, he always had this lost look in his eyes that contrasted sharply with his strong body and character, which made it even more touching and heart breaking. When this image freezes for few seconds in front of my inner eyes, then my throat chokes and my tears start pouring.
I saw this bewilderedness on his face on two occasions: first, when I was drafted to the military, and it was war time in our country. He was bidding me farewell not knowing if his son is going to be fighting on the front lines and running the risk of dying and therefore never seeing him alive, again. The moment lasted few seconds, he gave me a furtive look, and without uttering a word he told me: “I am worried, I don’t know what to do, I hope all will be ok, but it is out my control and it hurts me”. The second time, it was more intense, at least it left a stronger impression on me, it happened 9 years after the first occurrence. My father came back to his home country after working all winter and spring in Africa, he was feeling sick in his stomach for three consecutive weeks, he was livid and tired. He was scared from not knowing what his sickness was, and terrified by the ensuing complications during his 12 hours’ journey. When he entered the door of the house, all pale, and clearly in pain, he hardly said hello, and quickly hurried upstairs to his room. I still managed to have a glimpse of his face and I saw that lost and bewildered look in his eyes. It left a lasting and deep impression in my soul. I can picture it now, and if I pause on this image more than few seconds, the feeling of powerlessness invades me, like it invaded him on that night and I feel enraged for not being able to do anything about it, and this rage finds its way out of my body, out of my soul, through my eyes with the bitterest tears.
The second instance where my tears beat my brain and find their way to my cheeks is when my mind gets fixated on the idea that my country, the one I want to belong to and live in, doesn’t exist anymore and will never exist again. This certainty suffocates me, squeezes my heart, and draws tears from my eyes.
My rage is fueled by my conviction that my fellow country men and women, against my will, destroyed my country, expelled me from it, for no return, and by the feeling of injustice from being born somewhere beautiful, with people who don’t care about its beauty. What am I saying, if only they didn’t care, at least, they would leave it be, but no, they couldn’t just leave it alone, they needed to add their immense ignorance and deeply rooted backwardness and utterly and permanently spoil it with their ugly buildings, barbaric roads, hideous malls, and awful mountains of trash and garbage.
With my countrymen’s unshakable believe in their superior intelligence, that nothing surpasses except their oversized ego and their absolute individualism, they always try to do what is best for their own benefits and these are measured by the swelling of their pockets. A country, where the ONLY value and measure of success is material wealth, is absolutely doomed. My country is doomed. The people who don’t have money keep talking, continuously, about how they should become rich, and the ones who are rich, brag about their wealth and spend their entire existence enslaving the poor people and showing off over the other rich ones. Every man is defined by how much money he has, not even makes, and almost every woman defines herself by the wealth of the man she marries.
How can such a country be built? How can it be even preserved? My rage from this injustice, my powerlessness to reverse anything, my need to belong to a country I am proud of, and my feeling of despair of ever achieving this, make me cry.
I haven’t been able to turn the page. I will never do. I will cry whenever I remember these two things until life turns my page. I am blessed and cursed with two frustrated loves, the love of a father with whom life didn’t allow me to spend enough time and the love of a country that was slain by the hands of its own sons and daughters. I am like a man who is deeply in love with a woman, and at the pinnacle of their passion, she goes into a coma, unexpectedly. She is there but it is not her. When he pays her a visit, he sees her deteriorating and there is nothing he can do about it. It makes him deeply sad. The immense sorrow of witnessing her slow but relentless demise is pushing him inexorably to see her less and less. He’s not able to bring his mourning process to an end, as she is still alive. He is stuck in and endless state of painful remembrance. He will never forget her, he will continue to cry, until his death takes care of this.
These tears will never tarry. They are eternal. This is my curse, my cross…