it's your birthday, mom

Hey mom,

It's the 7th of January, 2014. Last time we celebrated together, it was 2001. Kind of crazy, huh? We had organised a surprise party for you, and I guess we all knew it would be your last. You never had big birthday parties as a kid --you always told me how your brother and sister both had birthdays in December, and then there was Christmas, and then New Years, and by the time your birthday came no one really had the energy to do anything, so it was called "eid el tlet baraneet" (the 3-hats party) because the only people there was you and your siblings.

I didn't always have presents for you; mostly drawings or cards or something I made myself. But I always had letters. And I figure I can still do that, write to you on your birthday.

You would've been 59 today. You never wanted us to know that, your real age, and for as long as I can remember you always turned 33 and that's how you'll always remain in my world. You would've been the proud mother of a 20-year-old son who is off to college in Montreal, studying environmental science and in love with sports and nature, just like you. I can imagine you two would have had a hell of a time exploring mountains and discussing global warming. You would've been the proud mother of a 24-year old daughter who is a graphic designer, just like you were, and who could've taught you how to do it all on photoshop (no, they don't use pencils and papers to draw logos anymore...).

I close my eyes, and I imagine I would have taken you out to lunch today, just like I did 13 years ago; and we would have talked about my plans, my wanting to move, the book I'm writing and why I keep getting my heart broken and you would've probably had some tough love in there for me to snap me back into place. Of course, I would've probably spent the entire time talking about me, because that's what kids do, right? Just like I'm doing now. It's your birthday, and all I can do is talk to you about myself.

I will take a moment and say something about you though. I found it in the letter I wrote you that last birthday you were still around. I wrote: "The only thing I can give you today that matters are my words. You will always be my mother. The years go by, things happen that we don't expect, and all the tears we cry wont change anything. So let's look at the world positively, isn't that what you always say?"
 It is what you always said. Even sick, even dying; and I will never forget that.

Happy birthday mom, wherever you are now.

do something for cancer [World Cancer Day]

It's World Cancer Day today. February 4th.

A day where the whole world should think about Cancer. Raise awareness. Because it's a leading cause of death worldwide.

This year alone, four of my friends lost a parent to cancer. My aunt lost her husband to lung cancer last month. My friend's 22 year-old brother is bravely fighting a rare form of non-hodgkin's lymphoma. My sister's best-friend is fighting Hodgkin's disease. And two days ago another friend lost her father to one of the hundreds of complications brought on by cancer treatments, that leave you weak and vulnerable. And Lebanon lost a great man. That's just this year. That's just people I personally know.

Immagine the millions. I know it's a statistic: 7.6 million deaths a year. It sounds like a lot, but in the end it's just a number. But when we take a look at the number of people we know who are affected by this disease right now, it feels a lot more real. And that's not counting how many other millions are living with the disease, dying of the disease.

I don't know why I feel compelled to write about this. Cancer is tied to my life, somehow. When I was 12 years old, I wrote a book. It was called "I Believe in Angels." It was the story of a 16-year-old girl who's best friend gets Cancer. A disease I knew nothing about back then. When I was 21, we published this book, some 5,000 copies, and all the proceeds went the St Jude Children Cancer Center in Lebanon. I knew nothing about Cancer back then, but now, people call me when someone they know has the disease, because they feel like I know how to deal with it. Nobody really does though.

The problem with Cancer is that it comes with no warning. When my mom was diagnosed, they said she had 2 weeks to live. Her lung-cancer had metastasized to her head and the tumor was pressing against her brain and it's only that pain (a massive headache) that took her to the hospital to check it out. We were lucky enough to get someone in Belgium to operate on the tumor and reduce it enough to give her another year. Sometimes Cancers go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for months, years even. It is important that everyone is aware of the danger and how common it is, and gets regular checkup, no matter what your age is.

Some people get screened early enough to really beat it. Others beat it against the odds. But we will all get a greater chance if we stay aware of the risks and take precautions.

Here is what the World Health Organization says about reducing cancer:

More than 30% of cancer deaths could be prevented by modifying or avoiding key risk factors, including:

• tobacco use
• being overweight or obese
• unhealthy diet with low fruit and vegetable intake
• lack of physical activity
• alcohol use
• sexually transmitted HPV-infection
• urban air pollution
• indoor smoke from household use of solid fuels.

Tobacco use is the single most important risk factor for cancer causing 22% of global cancer deaths and 71% of global lung cancer deaths. In many low-income countries, up to 20% of cancer deaths are due to infection by HBV and HPV.

So what am I gonna do today? I'm going to stop smoking. I've tried it before, I will try it again until it sticks. 

Cancer doesn't just happen to the person who gets it. Of course, for that person, facing the possibility of death is worse than anything we can imagine. But everyone who loves that person gets it too. When you love someone who is diagnosed, who is going through treatment, it's like there's a tumor growing inside of you. It eats at you everyday. The fear, the sadness of being helpless in front os the one you love. The anxiety that you don't want to show them. The smile you put up to force away your tears. And the loneliness of not being able to share your feelings with them. I won't even start to talk about their loneliness, because I have no idea what it feels like and I wont pretend I do.

But I know this disease is real. More real than anything else I've known. The leading cause of death in people I know, that's for sure. So for that reason alone, I have to say something on World Cancer Day. For them. In their memory. For their fights. This isn't some far away disease on another corner of the planet. This is personal. So do something. 

This is for my mom, Rima. This is for Judo Husni, Teta Farida, May Louise, and Joe. This is for Lara's father, Rana's mother, Fadi's father, Joumana's father. May they rest in Peace. This is for Jamal, and Claudine, and Bana and Nabil and Lara who fought and won. This is for Naim and Farid who are still fighting.

there's no merit in loving if everything is easy

Some people say my family is cursed. They say we're "like the Keneddy's." That the series of tragedies never end. I guess I can see where they're coming from...  Two cancers, a rare illness called "Harada", a spinal cord injury, a heart attack, five deaths. And every time, we think that's it, this has got to be the last one, we can't possibly deal with any more. But apparently we can.

And so it has crossed my mind at some point too, that our family is indeed, peculiarly unlucky. Actually we were laughing about that on Friday night, the day my aunt buried her husband, and my cousins buried their father. 22 years before, on the very same day, my aunt walked down the aisle in a church in Paris and married the love of her life. This week, in stead of celebrating a love that was still very much alive, she wore a black dress and walked behind his casket in a cemetery.

That night, as we were gathered around her fireplace,surrounded by the pictures of all those we've lost, we all laughed. It might seem odd to still be laughing, on a day where you just buried someone you adored, but there is something about our family that goes beyond the pain we feel again and again. The entire time of the condoleances, my cousin was wearing a little paper boat clipped on her dress. "This one day, my father was crying," she said. "I didn't know what to do or how to stop his pain, so I clipped on this little paper boat on his shirt, and it made him laugh." We need the silly little things to make us smile, even in the worst of times.



What people don't know about our family is that we're actually one of the luckiest. The love that bonds us all so closely together only grows every time another tragedy hits. No one is left alone, not for a second. The other day, I was looking at my father's and my uncle's girlfriends, and I told them "What are you still doing here?" And my aunt joked: "Run! Run for your life!" Run for your life quite literately. But deep down we all know why they haven't run yet.




There is no merit in loving someone when everything is easy. When they are always perfect, and healthy, and kind, and full of qualities. Anyone can love if that's that. But when you go through the flaws, and the years and the pain, when you've seen the ugly, the poor, the sick... that's when you know you love someone all the way. My aunt said even if she knew she would lose her husband 22 years after she got married, she wouldn't have missed a minute of it, she wouldn't have exchanged him for anything. My father said the same thing about my mother. Even I look back and say that although the days when my ex-boyfriend was sick were the hardest, they were the days I loved him the most, and I can still admit that now.


This post is a tribute to Joe.

It's hard to put words together and do him justice, it's hard to write anything at all because none of us want to accept that he's gone. But there's no merit in loving someone if everything is easy.

the tumors of life

I wanted to write a love story today. Something that would make everyone smile for the new work week ahead. But I woke up this morning in sweats, after having spent the night having nightmarish dreams about having a tumor. The one word that sends shivers down my spine and makes me want to puke whenever I hear it. My second most hated word in any language, after cancer.

I remember the first time I heard it. I was nine years old and I heard the adults talking about it. I remember asking "can anyone catch it?" and they said yes, anyone could catch it and no one knew what it was from. I was scared shitless. So scared, in fact, that the word cancer stayed buried back in my mind for the next few years. Little did I know that this word would come to define the first quarter of my life. When I was 13, I wrote a book called "I Believe in Angels." It was about a sixteen year-old boy, dying from Cancer. It may seem odd for a 13-year-old girl to write a story with such drama --which at the time, I knew nothing about. I could only imagine what it was like for the boy to find out he was dying, for his friend to deal with the news while still being there to make him smile, and for his family to accept this tragedy. It was all made up in my mind, all my imagination.

I had no idea that three years later I would come to experience this word so close it would feel like a gun to my temple. When my mother got sick, at first, no one mentioned the scariest-word-in-the-world. It was "a mass" that she had to remove from her brain, and a "treatment" that would make her loose her hair. And then one day, I sat across from a therapist who asked me questions about my mother's illness, until she made me say the word. Worst moment of my life.

From then on, it was like living with a ticking-clock inside my stomach. I was afraid to find myself alone with my father because I was worried of what bad news he could tell me. I was too scared to look anyone in the eyes, because I didn't want to see the worry on their face. I was terrified of speaking to my mother, because I was too scared I would break-down and burst-out crying, when everyone specifically said no crying and no negative energy around her. It was exhausting.

When she died, we thought we buried Cancer with her. Never wanted to hear that word again. Ever. But then two years later we buried my grandmother with the same word. And I thought that must be it. And then, some odd years later, I fell in love and was happy and the word came back in my life. Again.

When my boyfriend looked at me and told me he had a tumor in his chest, with tears in his eyes, I became a rock. I couldn't even blink. I held my breath, afraid of what would happen if I lost control. This time, I wasn't going to burry anyone but that fucking word.

I was older now and it was different. No one was trying to protect me from the realities anymore, I had to protect him. I came to realize, very quickly, that this wasn't happening to me again, but rather, this was happening to him. And so he fought, and I fought with him, and I was happy that for once, Cancer was the one getting its butt kicked. And he did it. And last year like now, like this very week, we buried Cancer, on its own, hopefully for good. It wore us out, changed us forever, made us take different paths then we expected. But this morning when I woke up, all I could see was his face, that first day in the hospital, when they were wheeling him down to the biopsy. And all I could see was my mother, who put on a brave face, smiling at her three children, pretending that word hadn't just shook her whole world around. And all I could see was my grandmother, once the symbol of beauty and elegance, weak and ravaged by this savage disease.

But people fight this everyday, I've seen it. And I just wanted to write a tribute, to those who fought, those who lost, and those who will join the fight.