Saying Goodbye

I could hear the tears she was trying to stifle on my end of the phone. I had nothing to say but we will meet someday, not so sure of course, but I had to say something. My friend is one of those people, to whom the idea of leaving has always been out of the question. Despite the fact that her life was miraculously spared while giving birth to her firstborn under the hardest of times and the fact that she’s been on the receiving end of nonstop sectarian remarks at her workplace and the fact that her husband managed to escape detention, she was so resolved to live the rest of her life in Iraq. The last straw was the attempt on her dad’s life, only then she realized this is no longer home and it was about time to leave.

I have always hated goodbyes. All the friends and family members who knew every detail of my life seem to be trickling out of the country. On my sister’s last day in Iraq, she begged me not to cry. I kept the brave face for quite some time but I got tired of playing the I-wouldn’t-care-less role. It dawned on me that my nephew and I will no longer be friends and my predictions have become reality. Yesterday I bowed and scraped for His Majesty to talk to me on the phone, he was too shy to do it. I felt so crestfallen; I’ve become the faceless stranger who sends him presents, not the “Tita” who used to watch animated movies with him, or the ugly auntie who’d yell at him whenever he came near my textbooks and pens. I have become just a voice from a place called Baghdad, whatever that means.

When my favourite aunt was forced out of her house and chose to leave Baghdad for good I told her it was too risky for me to come say goodbye. It was not the risks I was trying to fend off, I didn’t want to tell her that I missed her already or the aroma of her food was still lingering in my nose I didn’t want to tell her I wanted to turn back time and keep her where I could see her.


It was not a coincidence when I passed by my grandma’s neighbourhood. Though she was usually grumpy, when it comes to describing “Krerida” - her own diminutive for Karrada – her face beamed. She, too was heartbroken when the ex-regime had an eye on her area and forced her family and all her loved ones out to build his palace from Arabian Nights. For the first time since she died, I felt I could relate to her pain. I could see why she fell in love with the place. It never occurred to me how lush and beautiful it was, but had she been standing where I was I bet she would have felt more rotten, places may wax an awful lot of nostalgia, but it is the people around that make the places we are attached to what they are.



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