Tribute to the Magnificent O; my childhood best friend.

(Warning: looong post with boring personal content.)

O, you may not be the first friend I ever had, but all those who came before you were shadows of friends, people who kept me company in school and sat next to me and shared petty secrets and probably talked to me on the phone everyday, but they still don’t count. You were my first real friend; you were the first to step inside my heart and save a little block for yourself there. You actually left such a great impact on me that now I find myself only comfortable when speaking and writing in the language we used together, I use it better than I use my own native tongue. Could it be because it was with you that I actually started to speak out and talk? I don’t remember talking much before you!

My “half-American” cousin; both parents are Egyptian but you were born in Virginia and you’ve lived your whole life moving from one American state to another, except for the five years you spent in Saudi Arabia – where you went to an American school of course! Though I saw you a couple of times as a child (the first time I think I was 6 and the second I was 8), we only started hitting it off when I was 10! Before then we were strangers, alien to one another, cousins only in theory (which is how it feels with many of my cousins).

I don’t remember how we started talking and laughing together. You are two years younger than I am; as old as my little sis., but I always felt younger than you are yet still felt older than my little sister; even back when I was just 10 and you were only 8. It was you who gave the older-person vibes. You knew so much and you were in so much pain (even as a child), and it was so easy to talk with you even with the slight language barrier. You spoke very poor Arabic as you only knew the most basic and necessary common words, and I barely ever spoke at all! We started talking in English of course. You would fix my sentences as I speak with you and I would be grateful. I would try to teach you some Arabic only to find out that I easily forget how to use words properly for I almost never use them. I was a very quiet kid!! So I only taught you single vocabulary words, separate compounds, fragments of sentences, or even phrases I read in books which are not very suitable for slang use. I taught you some dirty words without understanding what they mean exactly, just the way I heard them, and we would guess their meanings together. You taught me (whether aware of it or not) how to talk, how to say what I want (even if only to myself), how to pronounce words – the way you do – and how to give intonation to my sentences so that they’d give whichever meaning I desire. I started loving words once I realized how to use them.

So we were becoming friends, but it’s still this specific incident in my head that marks the beginning of our friendship, or at least its validity. There we were – I think I was 11, you about 9 – in my parents’ house in Alexandria, we were staying up late in my room and we were talking endlessly. You took over one bed and I took over the other, we both laid on our backs, staring on the dark ceiling and talking to one another. You were telling me about how much you hate your father for making you move so much around states, and how you miss the one good friend you had in Milwaukee (I can swear I know his name, the memory decaying process is already starting). You were telling me about your Milwaukee friend calling him the best friend you ever had, then you paused and added “you two are the best friends I ever had, you and him”. I smiled to the dark ceiling and said something like “and you O are the best friend I ever had… have actually!” We fell silent for a while, and I considered this as the official declaration of our friendship. I fell asleep with this thought in my head, and up until now every time I remember our childhood simplicity and innocence that night I smile and feel warm-hearted.

We were growing up, and every year my little sis. and I looked up to your summer visits to Egypt. She, too, was one of your best friends, and back then you were one of the few things she and I had in common, but for some reason – and although the 3 of us did a lot of things together, I still thought of you as MY friend and HER fun cousin. It was probably because of the times the both of us would side up against her and mock her or play games on her. But all the way, you were friends to the both of us and most of the things we did, the three of us did together!

We shared our mutual dislike of some family members or some behaviors. We shared our childish misery and made inside jokes of them. We talked about our dreams and what we wanted to be when we grow up. You wanted to be a soldier and a boxer and a doctor, a fighter and a healer and a powerful vengeful person; you wanted to be a “good vampire” who sucks the life out of people you hate. I wanted to be a science teacher and a vet and a painter and a coroner in a morgue and a pianist and a therapist and a psychic guide. You wanted to be taller and stronger and to have a smaller nose; I wanted to be telepathic and stronger and wished I had more control over my big hair. You wanted to grow up so fast so bad, and I never wanted to grow up at all, instead I kept wishing I could go back to being a 3 year old.

We talked about our favorite things. We both loved pizza and we used to gorge one slice after the other till we’re absolutely full, then we would smile exhaustedly to one another saying “this was gooood”. We talked about which colors we prefer. Blue was always my favorite, green was yours. We would go on and on listing all the green and all the blue things in life that are just wonderful, in a silly attempt to make one of us change his mind and adopt the other’s favorite color as his own. I would go “sky, sea, water, blue birds, bluebells…” then you would go “grass, valleys, trees, food…”

I would object “food?? Besides, grass and valleys and trees are more or less the same, no variety!” you would go “no they’re not, and yes food. Veggies are food, peas, pepper, beans… you name one food item that’s blue if you can” I would say “raspberries” you would say “that’s fake flavor color, raspberries aren’t blue” I would say “fine, I would eat bluebells, and I would eat blue birds if given the chance.” We would finally agree that both are okay, both colors are in the rainbow and that makes them okay.

We would lie on our backs up on the roof and watch the clouds; making shapes of them as they move and shift and evaporate. I would see a sail boat and you would see a shotgun.

We would act out roles of vampires and werewolves; you would choose to be a wild werewolf to roar all you want, and I would choose to be a subtle classy vampire who bites when least expected.

We would sneak out at night and sit in the guests’ room to talk and laugh and sometimes cry. We would sneak out to the kitchen to drink milk (we both loved milk which somewhat singled us out as kids, what kind of kids love milk?), we would compete on who can burp louder after big meals. I would come out to you in my PJs or my night shirt or whichever un-matching clothes I’d be wearing in my sleep, all big hair and looking like a complete mess, and you would come out not looking so much better yourself, and we would talk all night till our eyelids start betraying us and start falling heavily begging us to have mercy and go sleep.

All of it feels like it was just a few weeks ago.

O, I can’t summarize what we had in a few pages let alone a few lines. It would take me days and weeks to write about all our phases and all the things we shared. This account is long as it is though I’ve skipped many details and cut off some huge paragraphs in the middle!

I just had the strongest urge to post about you…
I’m happy and grateful you’re here, though only for a short while…
I so wanted to mark this “short while” up on my personal ranting space and this is the only way I know how; for no short sentence or simple word of gratitude can contain how I feel…

And though you will not read this (not here), I still felt it had to be put that way!

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Tags: Friends, Memories, Scraps

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