Our homes were not palaces, but they were filled with treasures of memories, laughter, and scenes engraved with our small scribbles on the walls, and our playful marks in its corners. I don't know why my mother used to complain to my father every time I drew on the walls with my beautiful handwriting, or when I played with the fan buttons and took it out of its place. I never understood why my father replaced the vertical fan with another one hanging from the ceiling instead. Yes, the switch became out of reach for my hand, but I learned how to stand on a chair with a knife in my hand to open this magical box, eager to satisfy my curiosity and know what's inside and how it illuminates the living room with a touch.
I didn't understand why my mother got angry at me every time the electricity went out in the house because of my playing with the sockets!
I grew up here, racing with my siblings to sit next to my father around the dining table, or who would carry the dishes and the cold water pitcher with my mother. Who knew the location of the new spoons hidden for guests? Who would hide in my grandmother's embrace as she told us bedtime stories?
Here, we shared the wardrobe, clothes, bedroom, furniture, and cartoons on TV. We inherited school books, shared friends, dreams, games, stories, and novels...
Our home was the embrace that held us tirelessly throughout the day, providing us with renewed energy and charging our souls with deep warmth. Imagine when we stayed overnight at my grandmother's house, how we longed for her embrace, rushing to it like a giant magnet attracting us every morning.
Wedding celebrations used to take place on our rooftop, filled with guests, while the spacious guest room on the ground floor welcomed visitors during various occasions. My grandfather gathered with family men in his salon every evening around the fireplace in winter nights.
During the siege years, getting essentials in our home was challenging. We bought fresh water and stored usage water in barrels on the roof. My mother waited for the scheduled electricity hours to wash clothes, bake dough, charge the lighting batteries, and the internet...
The details of our lives in our homes were rich with events, people, and accumulated memories as we lived in their embrace, especially since we, like most families in our city, expanded vertically in our homes. The more individuals there were, the more memories branched and beautified...
We grew up, got married, and each of us had a home for ourselves and a extended family to care for. But that never distracted us from the longing for our first home whenever nostalgia struck, and the giving energy in our hearts faded. It never held back its tenderness every time we lay our burdens on its chest, comforting us and providing us with a balanced elixir of life to restore it to us without impurities.
It's true that buttons are within my reach now, and I have no curiosity to open an electrical socket to see how it lights up the place. I won't play with the fan buttons out of fear of my mother, who would complain to my father about me. My father passed away to the mercy of Allah, unaware that the ceiling fan fell (I swear it wasn't me, Dad), and that the walls along with my scribbles crumbled, and that the books, stories, novels, and certificates all burned, and the wardrobe, clothes, furniture, dining room, dishes, and guest spoons all deteriorated. The voices and laughter that used to fill the place and its floors vanished, after the house lost its ability to survive, and the occupation stripped it of its life elixir, leaving it in a limbo without a scheduled date for its official death certificate. As for my remaining siblings, they settled in open spaces and built houses of cloth and wood, calling them the tents of the displaced.