The turn of a not so friendly card!

There is no reprieve from the stress of daily (Lebanese) life and from family ties which I thought I had severed a while back. The past month has been nothing but what I could easily compare to scenes from a B movie. Just when I thought “it was safe to get back into the water”, and having laid the dead to rest, Beelzebub raised it’s ugly (but familiar) head once more.
I started to let go of my family years ago, after many failed attempts to hold a middle ground. My separation was finally successful (or so I thought) when I was neck high in shit and was left alone to my own demise. To the dismay of many I am still here today alive and kicking and living my life free of them all.
But am I ?
Painful circumstances have brought me back to my grandfather’s house in our little village in the south, where I still have vivid memories of a very happy and innocent childhood away from family feuds. My son of twelve, until this past Sunday, never knew that he had so many, uncles, aunts, cousins, great uncles...etc, if it was not for the anticipation of yet another loss.
This past Sunday, most of my close relatives gathered in Selim’s (my grandfather) house in an attempt to bring joy to my uncle’s heavy heart (having lost a young son 3 weeks earlier).
Tarek (and all the other kids in my family) were nothing but a bundle of joy who brought back life into what once was a vibrant home at the very end of quiet and quaint piece of Lebanon we claimed our home.
There I also got reacquainted with my Godson, whom I haven’t seen for more than 9 years. When he first saw me and called me (Jokingly) Godfather, my heart crumbled. I remember how we rushed his mother to hospital his father and I when his was due to be born. I remember the look on his father’s face when his birth was announced. This joy I felt inside was somehow short lived when he told me that he couldn’t recollect much of the time we spent together in England (when I left he was not even 4 years of age); but my heart rejoiced when he made me feel that the bond we had is still stronger than ever.
My son last Sunday had the chance the experience a part of what I lived every summer when I was growing up. My son last Sunday witnessed firsthand that he is part of an extended family. My son last Sunday had the time of his life.
I wish for my son to nurture this new feeling of belonging, to uphold true family values; and not to fall victim to elderly misconstrued pride and vanity.
No matter whom holds the deed to my Grandfather’s house now, this house has always been, and will always remain a meeting place for all our kids, and their kids to come.
Jeddo Selim, your legacy will always live on, in my heart, and I know of others as well!