Monday, June 4, 2007

Memory triggers


Zozo just ate a plum and he came to me to floss his teeth because apiece is stuck. His breath smelled like plum and I had a quick mental image of so long ago when we had a janazeh for a bird at our friend’s farm.
They had a huge farm in Lebanon. We used to love going there. It was always a bit cold on the mountains in Lebanon and the air so fresh. This family was very religious and the few brothers lived together on part time basis on this farm. They all had their own houses in the city. Every few weeks we’d go to the farm and spend few days with them. It was so much fun for us kids. There was a sandy hill we rolled down, we played hide and seek and tag in the fields, picked fresh flower and played house. The men would go hunting and the women would get dinner ready fort he million people in the house a that time, and of course gossip.
One day we found a dead bird between the plum and the peach trees. We all felt bad for the poor dead bird and I suggested we bury him and have a proper janazeh instead of leaving him on the ground. We were all between the ages of 4 and 13; none of us has ever been to a real funeral. But you always see the men carrying a box and everyone walking behind them on TV. So that is what we did. We put the bird in a small box, the oldest boy (his name was mos3ab) carried the box and all of us 10-15 kids walked behind him between the trees until we found he perfect burial spot. We all dug a hole big enough to fit the box. We read the fate7a then cried some and put a stone and some flowers on top. We promised to visit the grave every time we went up there, and we did until we came to Canada.

2 comments:

Me said...

That is cute!
i did the same thing with my sister and cousins one summer holiday, but it was for a caterpillar! we cried too...

7aki Fadi said...

awww, how sweet!

We burried our cat :(, we cried a lot :(