Dear Naím,

Lately, every time I asked you to do something, you answered back demanding “another something” in return. So how about this? Would you take this as a virtual postcard exchanged for the “love you” and don’t- come-into-my- room notes I have been getting from you recently? Deal?

I wanted to make this a written note so I do not forget, even when it feels Martian to write it in a foreign language to both of us, emotionally and culturally.

I realized that this past year I have been saying I’m sorry more times that I would like to. And I am not saying this as a self- flagelation act but as my personal al purpose of amendment. Flashes of all kinds of sorries appear before me. Sorry if I missed my cool, sorry if you felt neglected while I was answering work emails and you were doing your virtual class and demanded my help, sorry for the times I could be a cranky yeller, sorry if had been too tired to play superthings three times in a row, sorry for being short-tempered and give free rein to my frustrations aloud time after time.

Being in this hamster wheel, in this infamous loop courtesy of the global pandemic which seems to have been cohabiting with us since …forever, I also realized that what I have not been saying enough times is Thank you.

So this is my purpose of amendment for more thank yous and less I’m sorry(s).

Here I am leaving a written testimony so I don’t forget that I have So Much to thank you for. Not only I thank you for being. I thank you for giving me the nudge when I need it most, be it in the form of cries of attention, hypersensitivity arrests or simply blunt remarks ( how you got that dry sense of humour of yours being a 6-year-old is out of my league ); thank you for sharing your everyday epiphanies so eloquently, your dilemmas that make me also doubt myself, for keeping me grounded and for reminding me that everyday milestones are the rawest manifestation that life goes on, no matter what.

I love you “ till the exoplanets” and back, one million times.

We’ve got this, my love.

Mum 💋