Sun

Hello there sun I see you peeking out The world is pink Tell me something I don’t know

Tell me what my mom looked like as she gazed at you too Tell me what she was thinking What was in her heart

This chair I am sitting on Tell me something What did she smell like Why did she cry What did she feel To the entire universe

Hello Tell me something about those big chocolate eyes that gazed at the angels in front of her Tell me something about that smile of hers Tell me Who was she What did she think

Please universe Tell me Because I only got to look into her eyes and put my cheek against her cheek for the last time when I was 17

Please universe I washed her and buried her with my own two hands Tell me something I don’t know Because I am standing in the middle of the graveyard at her head bent over Telling her

Hello there stranger I don’t know you anymore I talk to the dirt I recite Quran to the dirt I sing to the dirt My tears fall on the dirt I yell MAMA MAMA ANSWER ME

Nothing As the crows look at me like I am an idiot I am lost I miss a woman I don’t know So I am looking for her

I try to remember those eyes And that face And that smile But my memories are dwindling They are turning into dirt And I fear that a day will come where I won’t remember her I can hear her voice now But in a few years Will I still hear her voice? Or feel her cold hands?

I am lost. Looking for a woman I will never find. The universe gives me glimpses of her. Like Mr. Abdullah’s wife. Or my classmate Shouroq. Or Khaleh Sawsan. They have the same eyes. The same skin tone. They are pieces of Mama.

I am 20. On a journey to spend my years on Earth finding Mama. Finding out who she really was. And learning from her life lessons. She wasn’t perfect. But to me She was a remarkable woman. And everyday She just gets even more remarkable And incredible

Sometimes she is the sun as I drive at 6 am in the morning. I never want to stop driving. Sometimes she is the red chair she used to sit on that I now sit on as I recite my Quran. Sometimes she is the Bvlgari perfume that lies hidden somewhere in a bag I can’t bring myself to open, with fear of losing my mom’s smell. Forever.

She is my dark eyes that stare back at me in the mirror. Except mine are darker than hers. She is the rain as I walk downtown with my head low, crying. She is all my tears that drip down my face.

I miss a woman I know nothing about Nothing. All I know

Is that she gave me everything she had without ever wanting anything from me. A type of selflessness that is beyond the scope of describing any possible human characterization.

She was my personal assistant that made me feel like I was gold when I cried of incompetence. She was everything I ever asked for in a father, an aunt, an uncle, a sibling, a colleague. She was everything. And more than everything.