Dear Baba,

It has been 2,341 restless days and long long nights,

and counting.

Over 6 long years since I held you last.

37 new grey hairs and 12 wrinkles across my face.

Petra has grown a full 42 cm and has had 5 haircuts.

7 baby teeth have been replaced by new ones.

I don’t know why, but I saved them for you and,

like many pieces of her and myself,

I lost them too.

I ransack the house at night like a mad woman,

I quietly turn things upside down and inside out-

but I just cannot find them.

Forgive me.

Petra cannot pronounce the ‘ha‘ in ‘bhibbak‘ (I love you in Arabic)

I don’t always speak to her in your tongue.

Their language is easier, and I don’t have the patience

to translate anymore.

Forgive me.

I tell her about the little village high on top of that great big mountain

where we are from,

I tell her- but, really, I’m reminding myself-

about the aunties that bathed her with kisses everyday,

the uncles who danced with her high on their shoulders,

about the walks we took up that mountain and

the brook I laid her in on those hot summer days.

I would say: Petra! That water was SO sweet our ancestors named it ‘The Spring of Honey!’

But she is unimpressed.

Petra does not believe any of it.

Forgive me.

2,341 days I have lost.

2,341 laughs, late night coffee cup readings, walks in the snowfall,

fights, and tears.

2,341 memories of what could and should have been.

Lost.

Forgive me.

This land has aged me in ways I never thought possible.

My heart is smaller, and my back more round,

I still carry the world on my shoulders.

I don’t recognize myself anymore,

and that’s not the worst part about it-

What if I show up at your door one day and

you don’t recognize me.