Journal Entry 8 – I’ll do anything to keep you, I’ll clean my room, try hard in school…

I walked towards the living room, feeling the cream wallpapered walls as I walked across the narrow hallway. Inaudible voices came from the living room, they grew more distinct the closer I got. I managed to distinguish Fahad’s voice from the chatter and I smiled to myself, my heart began to skip not only one beat but a string of beats that I had to catch my breath. Not only was I a family oriented person I was the kind of girl who would fly down from New York to Kuwait even if it meant spending less than 72 hours with the ones I love. I’m someone who gets homesick so easily that I find it difficult to sleep out so spending almost 5 years in The States was difficult for me, having Fahad there made it just that much easier. Anyhow, enough drifting in to thoughts and back to making my grand entrance to my family who are uninformed of my homecoming. Even better, Rakan who had no idea and was completly oblivious to the fact that I was coming back. As far as he knew I was spending a few weeks there on a roadtrip with my cousins who live in LA.
“DANA!!” my mother sprung up from her chair still shocked at the sight of me walking in to the room.
“That’s me” I quietly said as I shrugged my shoulders, shyly put my arms by my side and drawing a half smile on my face revealing the dimple in my right cheek. After my eyes had scanned the faces in the room they finally set on my father who sat in his couch but had an oxygen tank beside him and a tube connecting to his nose. My eyes widened as I dropped my bag to the floor and walked over to him, kneeling on the floor beside him.
“Baba?! What’s wrong 7abeebi?” I repeatedly said, not giving him a chance to speak as I ran my fingers through his hair I saw a lock of his wavy hair fall into the palm of my hand. My heart that was skipping a beat as I walked into the room has now stopped beating all together, but I didn’t shed a single tear. I smiled and asked him how he was feeling and he said the one thing I’ve been waiting to hear for 5 long months.
“You’re here, how can I not be okay?” his weak eyes still managed to light up as he picked up my hands and kissed them with his trembling lips. Silence fell upon the entire room as I managed to senselessly kiss everyone but their faces and words were all a blur. Fahad and my mother told me to come to the kitchen. I feared the inevitable, as I knew what was coming but I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want the speculation in the back of my head to be confirmed in to words. After the 2 minute conversation with my mother and Fahad any doubt or assumption to my Fathers condition was now as certain as the 9AM sun that beat through the french windows of the kitchen and blinded my blood shot red eyes.

“Aha…” I repeatedly kept saying as I felt Fahad’s hand run up and down my arm in attempt to console me but he only managed to agitate me even more. I pushed his hand away and walked back into the living room with my shoulders back and my head held high and the brightest most cheerful smile drawn across my face. I took my seat beside my old man and managed to hold up a conversation with him without bursting into pools of tears. I acted as if I hadn’t just heard the worst news in the world, I acted as if I wasn’t crumbling on the inside, as if my whole world wasn’t going to shatter without his existence in my life. Without waking up to seeing his smile brighten up my room in the morning when he brings me my coffee. Without our Friday night walks on the beach in the chalet. Calm and collected on the outside but crushed, crippled and mangled on the inside.
Like a sailor without a compass, a ship without the sea, like him without me.

Photograph: Catgotti on Flickr

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