A Word to the Dear Reader 📖✨

Welcome.

Before you dive into these pages, I'd like to share the quiet story of how it came to life: it is a deeply personal journey, and my very first step across the threshold of writing. I wrote it not in pursuit of perfection, but in search of discovery — a way to test my honesty toward the story, and to see whether I truly have the voice to weave it.

Writing, as you know, is never truly complete until the writer's eyes meet the reader's. So today, I ask you for the greatest gift a reader can offer a writer at the start of their journey: your honest, unfiltered thoughts.

🔍 Tell me what moved you, what faded without leaving an echo, and what you felt needed trimming or reworking.

📝 Is this tale worth further polishing?

🌱 Do you see in it a seed worth nurturing—one that might one day deserve to see the light of publication?

💬 Or is it still finding its shape, needing more time, patience, and practice before it's ready to stand on its own?

Your words will never be just passing comments. They will be a compass guiding my next step, a reason to keep going, or a quiet push that sends me back to my desk with a sharper, deeper lens.

Thank you for giving me your time, your trust, and above all: the grace to accompany a writer still finding his footing. 🤍📖

I leave you now with the story... and I'll wait with quiet anticipation for the thoughts you'll share in return.

With all my love and gratitude,

[Durgham] ✍️

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My journey with pain began at the age of eleven, when I lost my mother after a bitter struggle with cancer. I was far too young to understand the meaning of loss, yet even so, I felt something inside me break. My mother was not merely a mother; she was my safe haven, the embrace I fled to whenever life tightened around me. With her passing, it was not only her physical presence that vanished — an unfamiliar loneliness began to seep into me, as though the world around me had suddenly changed, growing darker and drained of color.

I still remember her final days with a clarity that does not resemble a child's memory, as if those details were inscribed within me in ink that could never fade. Anxiety filled the house. My father moved with measured lightness, placing cups in silence, lifting the kettle lid cautiously, as though afraid of waking something asleep. Conversations were whispered, reduced to gestures. I would hear him say, "Her medicine..." and, without the sentence being completed, I understood that it was time for the white pill.

My father and I tried to draw quick smiles, but they always betrayed us; they trembled at the corners of our mouths, exposed by eyes that avoided meeting.

I would sit beside her bed, watching her breaths rise and fall like a weary tide. Once, I moistened her lips with a piece of cotton and whispered,

"Mother, does anything hurt?"

She opened her eyes slightly, as though lifting a heavy curtain, and said in a faint voice,

"My pain is light now... where is your laughter?"

I let out a short laugh, and afterward I felt as though the entire room was looking at me, as if it knew I was lying.

My father would stand at the threshold, tapping his fingers against the doorframe, and when our eyes met, he would gesture gently:

"Support the pillow... like this... well done, Amel."

In those days, time was no longer measured in hours, but in the number of pills and the times I half-opened the curtain and closed it again. The night was long, stretching like endless insomnia, while the day passed quickly like the blink of an eye. We no longer said, "She will recover," but instead whispered, "She will rest." A single word had changed, yet it opened within me a chasm whose depth I could not comprehend.

When I laid my head on her thigh, she would tell me stories that began but never finished. Once, she told me how she taught me to tie my shoes when I was four, and how I fell that day and cried. Then she raised her index finger and said,

"Remember... never leave a knot without untying it."

I did not realize then that she was speaking of things far greater than a shoelace.

The silence between us spoke more eloquently than words. Sometimes she would signal for me to bring the cup closer, and sometimes she would run her hand slowly over my hair, as if counting its strands to reassure herself it was still as she had left it.

Once, I asked her innocently, "When will we go to the market? You promised me a red dress."

She looked at me for a long time, a gaze in which tenderness mingled with something that resembled farewell, then said,

"Red suits you... choose it carefully, and make sure it is wide enough for you to run in."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and said quickly, as though reassuring her,

"I will run... I will run a lot, Mother."

The house... that being which used to laugh with the clatter of utensils and smile with the cleanliness of freshly washed floors — now moved with a strange caution; the door opened and closed as if afraid of waking someone asleep.

When drowsiness overcame me, I would retreat to a nearby corner, watching the shadows of things stretch across the wall and then shrink. My father sat on the wooden chair, turning to look at me from time to time:

"Does your mother need anything?"

I would shake my head in silence. He would murmur, as if speaking to himself, "Patience, Amel... patience."

The word "patience" was not a lesson then; it was a crutch we leaned on so we would not fall.

And on a morning that resembled secrecy, everything stopped... I remember the street was unusually still, and a bird landed on the edge of the window, then suddenly flew away without reason.

My mother's face was calm in a way I had never seen before; a profound serenity, as if the exhaustion had finally withdrawn from her features. I placed my ear on her chest, just as she used to do with me when I was afraid... and I heard nothing.

My father said in a weary voice, "Your mother has passed away peacefully."

I did not understand the sentence. The words came out of me without awareness:

"I will bring her water."

He gently took my hand and said, "No... she doesn't need it now."

In that moment, I felt the room suddenly expand in a painful way, as though the walls had retreated far away. Everything seemed larger than I knew, farther than I could reach. I looked at the glass on the table and saw my reflection split into two halves. I tried to bring them together with a single glance... but they did not unite.

There, and only there, did I understand the meaning of estrangement.

After her passing, everything did not change all at once; it eroded slowly, like a drop of water falling on the same spot every day.

I became like a child torn from her roots, trying to comprehend what had happened with small questions that could not bear such weight, with scattered images, and a fear that interrupted words. Whenever I tried to grasp the truth, it slipped through my fingers, and I would return to convincing myself:

"Perhaps she is asleep... perhaps she only needs a little silence to wake."

I chose my words carefully, softening them as much as I could: "resting... gone for a while..."

And I avoided that single, heavy word which, once spoken, would never leave.

I opened her wardrobe, not to look for anything, but to summon her scent. I found a handkerchief embroidered with blue thread. I lifted it to my face, and a silent flood of tears poured out.

On the top shelf, there was a small box holding sewing needles, scraps of fabric, and an old photograph of her laughing in the open air. I looked at the picture and whispered, "Mother... come back to me."

My father entered the room quietly and stopped at the threshold, as though afraid to come closer.

"Do you want me to stay?"

I nodded without looking at him.

He remained standing near the door, guarding my silence, then said in a low voice,

"You will grow up, Amel—"

I cut him off quickly. "Don't finish."

I did not want that sentence to carry me into a future I could not endure... while I was still trapped here, in a moment that swallowed everything that came after it.

I moved through the house like someone rearranging a stage after the play had ended; I returned the cup to its place, drew the curtain, and gathered the strands of hair caught in the teeth of the comb, hiding them in a small handkerchief. I did not know why I did that, but I wanted something tangible of her, something I could place in my palm and say, "This is my mother."

When my father saw the handkerchief in my hand and did not ask, I felt that we understood each other in another language — a language that spared us explanations.

We sat for a long time in silence. The stillness was dense, yet alive; the hands of the clock tapped softly against the wood, the wind slipped through the cracks leaving behind a faint chill, and I counted my breaths the way one counts what remains to them.

I did not have enough words to name what had happened. I searched for a phrasing that would keep the door slightly ajar; I said "she is gone" instead of "she died," and wrote in my notebook, "My mother has traveled to a distant place."

In the middle of the night, when I laid my head on the pillow, I listened to the house breathing with difficulty and whispered, "Mother, you didn't leave entirely... did you?"

There was no answer, only a silence I insisted on interpreting as I wished.

After her passing, the world seemed slightly tilted, as though it had lost its balance. I needed an explanation less cruel than the truth, so I convinced myself that absence was a temporary trial, and that if the light remained lit in her room, the road would not tire of bringing her back.

I would turn every time the air slammed a door, preparing to hear her footsteps in the corridor, whispering within myself, "Perhaps..." And that "perhaps" was my small ladder above a bottomless abyss, something I clung to so I would not fall into the truth completely.

Only two years passed before I lost my father as well... he never recovered from losing her. Grief lived within him in silence, consuming him from the inside. He tried to appear strong for my sake, but I could see him fading gradually; his face losing its vitality day after day, as though life were slowly withdrawing from him.

He grew quieter than he should have, avoiding any mention of my mother, as if words weighed heavily on his chest. I tried to be strong for him, but I was still a child, needing him more than I was able to support him. In the end, he collapsed completely... in body and in spirit.

I remember that day as though it happened today. I was returning from school when the news reached me. I felt the ground pulled out from beneath my feet. It was another loss, but different — faster, harsher, giving you no time to understand.

I suddenly found myself alone... without parents, without a hand to hold me in this world. And in that moment, I realized that safety had been nothing more than a temporary illusion. The path before me became unknown, its edges thick with endless shadows.

Pain overwhelmed me — not only from losing him, but from the fear of an uncertain future... one I did not know how to face.

After my father's death, I found myself at a crossroads I was not prepared for. There was nothing left for me but my uncle's house, the last remnant of my family. I carried with me a faint hope of finding some comfort there, or at least a measure of stability. But life in that house was not as I had imagined, and I was not prepared for what awaited me.

From the very first moment, I felt unwelcome. The air was charged with a heavy silence, as though I were an intruder who had forced her way into a system where I did not belong. My uncle's wife was the first to convey this feeling without words; her cold glances, her quiet withdrawal whenever I appeared, were enough to tell me that my presence was not desired. She saw me as a sudden burden, cast upon her shoulders without permission.

As for my two cousins, the elder of whom was only a year older than I, there was nothing between us but a distance of estrangement. I found no trace of acceptance in their eyes — only sharp looks that suggested I was a stranger to be rid of. I did not understand the reason for such cruelty, yet it was present in every detail: in passing remarks, in undisguised mockery, and in a constant feeling that I was unwelcome in any corner of the house.

They spoke about me as though I were a burden consuming what was not mine, as though my presence diminished their comfort. They did not even try to conceal it, but let their hurtful words slip toward me without mercy, weighing down my chest and embedding within me a harsh sense of rejection.

My uncle, though he had opened his door to me, seemed incapable of protecting me. I saw in his eyes an unease mixed with guilt, as if he understood what I was going through but lacked the courage to confront it. He tried at times to intervene, to soften their harshness, but his attempts quickly broke against their threats to leave — the weapon they wielded to keep him subdued.

In silence, I would ask myself: "Does he fear losing them more than he feels responsible for me?" It was a question that weighed heavily on my heart, yet I did not have the luxury of seeking an answer. I had no choice but to stay.

With each passing day, I felt myself fading a little more, turning into a pale presence, unseen and disregarded. I no longer had a voice, nor a place to lean on—only a faint existence, barely tolerated.

I was not asking for a perfect life, nor for complete comfort; I was searching for something far simpler — a small warmth, a sense of safety. Instead, I found myself surrounded by coldness and rejection.

On some nights, as I lay on my bed, I would wish time could carry me back to those days when my parents were still alive. Even with pain, there had been enough love to make me feel that I belonged... that I did not have to fight to be accepted.

My uncle was a successful businessman, living in a luxurious mansion where signs of affluence were scattered in every corner. Fine carpets covered the floors, ornaments adorned the walls, and every room told a story of long-standing prosperity. Everything seemed complete... except for me; there was no place for me in that world.

At the back of the mansion, an abandoned cottage had been assigned to me — old and neglected, used for storing what was no longer of use. When I saw it for the first time, I realized it was not merely a place, but a silent reflection of my position among them: something without value, hidden away from sight.

Its walls were cracked, its roof trembling with every gust of wind. A constant cold, suffocating dampness, and a heavy silence filled it, as though time had forgotten it... just as everyone had forgotten me.

My uncle saw all of this, yet he did not intervene. I noticed how he avoided my gaze, as though he feared confronting what he knew too well. He was aware that I lived in conditions worse even than those of the household servants, and still he remained silent. Perhaps he feared disturbing the stability of his home, or losing what he had built. But his silence hurt me more than their cruelty.

I was treated worse than a servant. I began my day before everyone else and ended it only after they had gone to sleep. Cleaning, washing, arranging, tending the garden... endless tasks, without a word of thanks or a glance of appreciation. They saw what I did as something owed, a price for food and shelter.

I had become a working hand... without a voice.

At night, when they retreated to their warm rooms, I would return to my weary cottage, carrying the exhaustion of an entire day. I would sit in the darkness, clutching my pillow, and cry in silence. I hid my voice as much as I could — not because I was strong, but because I did not want to grant them a sense of victory.

And every night, I would raise my hands to the sky and pray: "My Lord... ease this burden from me."

I believed that God saw me, heard me, and did not leave me alone in this darkness. Prayer was my only refuge, the fragile thread that kept me from collapsing, holding on to a small hope... that one day, everything might change.

Years passed in this state until I completed my secondary education. Heavy years, filled with silent endurance and losses left untold.

I did not know what awaited me, nor where I would go after that. I had no options, yet I clung to what remained... to that fragile hope I feared might be extinguished.

One day, while I was absorbed in my usual tasks, my uncle entered suddenly. There was a hesitation about him I had never seen before, as though the words weighed heavily on his tongue.

He paused for a moment, then said quietly, "Amel, I have something to tell you."

I lifted my head toward him and said, "Go ahead, Uncle, tell me."

After a brief hesitation, he said, "We are traveling abroad... to live there."

I froze in place. Conflicting emotions tangled within me: sorrow that I might be left behind, fear of the unknown, and a confusion I could not explain. Despite everything, my uncle—despite his weakness—was the only face in that house that carried even a measure of mercy for me. My relationship with him was not strong, but he was the last thread connecting me to something resembling safety.

Then he added, "And you will come with us."

I lifted my eyes to him quickly, as though I had not heard correctly.

For a moment, a faint sense of relief crept into my chest. Perhaps he had not forgotten me entirely. Perhaps there was still a small place for me in this world.

But that reassurance did not last long. Within minutes, voices rose throughout the house. A heated argument broke out between him, his wife, and his sons. Their words collided in the air—harsh, explicit, leaving no room to conceal their rejection.

I could not see them, but I heard everything.

"We will not take her with us... she is a burden... this is impossible."

I wondered silently, "Would it be better for me to stay? Even if staying meant continuing in this pain?" And yet... there was something else growing within me... a faint hope, but a stubborn one.

The idea of traveling felt like a window suddenly opened in a sealed wall. A chance to escape, to catch my breath far from this place where I had suffocated for so long. For the first time in years, I felt that life might offer me a different beginning.

Despite the voices of refusal, despite the tension that filled the house, my uncle insisted. With an unusual calm, he held firmly to his decision.

His stance was surprising, as though he had reclaimed something he had lost long ago. I did not understand the reason for this change, but I felt a silent gratitude. Perhaps he had finally realized that I did not deserve what I had lived through, or perhaps he was trying to mend what could still be mended.

The path was not clear, and fear had not left me, but I held on to hope.

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