I, The Divine

~ ~ ~

And boy, was my father surprised.

My father divorced my mother in 1962, when I was two. She died in 1995. In all those thirty-three years, he never saw her, wrote, or called her. She no longer existed. I, through no fault of my own, reminded him of her. I was my mother’s daughter.

As I grow older, I notice how much I look like my mother. The eyes are the same, the hair is almost the same, mine is more brown than red, but I do dye it red every now and then. The nose, the forehead, the same. My sisters take after my father’s side of the family. I inherited the exotic looks.

When we were children, my father would regale us with stories, some fairy tales, some real stories from his days as a child, and some that were entirely made up. He used to love telling us “Sleeping Beauty.” He would show us each a mirror and in a solemn voice, tell us in English, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” My sister, Amal, would shout, “Sleeping Beauty.” Lamia stayed silent, as if she were being asked a trick question. I would shout, “Me!” My father loved that.

These days, the rhyme is different. I look at myself in the mirror and can’t help myself. I begin to chant:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

I am my mother after all.

And I start crying.

It isn’t just the looks. I notice how my life ended up and realize I am my mother, even though I hardly knew her