Thoughts on leaving Cairo- Part One

A Part of me left this beautiful country…. The departure was painful not for the part that left Cairo, but for the part that is left back in Cairo…

My two year old son would not even realize that something is amiss… he will actually be happier… courted by his grandparents, doted by his cousins and loved by his uncles and aunts…. He will be happier for he will not encounter a father who is deluged by work and study… who is too stressed to regularly take him for an evening walk that he loved so much and waited with baited breath… he will be away from the multi-storeyed life of a megalopolis… that never gave him enough space to move around…. He will feel the magic of an open courtyard… the way I felt during my childhood, he will feel the magic of rains… of the pitter patter, of a chilly morning, of an abundant sun… of chirping birds on the guava tree that adorns my lawn… and yet I will miss this beautiful country for him.

I will miss him walking on the pavements of Zamalek… I will miss him seeing Spacetoon, I will miss him smiling at the sight of Mahmood my bawab who used to hug him as lovingly as he would have his son, I will miss him in the arms of Amit my colleague, who loved him as much as I did. I will miss his happy self, soaked by the fountains of Al Azhar garden…

My flat will feel something amiss, for it would be lifeless from now on… it wouldn’t understand why he is so well-managed, clean… it wouldn’t feel small footsteps that brought life to it.

Everybody would miss him… but he, for he is blissfully unaware… but still I know sometimes his ever-rushing steps will slow down to wonder… why my baba is not around.