The garden                                                                                                                                 

Treasure of Baghdad           on al-Sarrafiya bridge




All the way to work, I kept thinking about how did the people who were on al-Sarrafiya bridge feel when they found their bodies riddled with shrapnel. I put myself in their shoes and imagined how the whole thing happened. Driving, going to work or school, thinking of death while driving and then Boom! Everything is gone, the bridge and themselves. Images of people’s bodies falling in the Tigris haunted me. What were these poor people saying to themselves in the distance between the river and the destroyed bridge as they were falling?

It’s killing me to see my beautiful Baghdad dying like this. These bloodthirsty new Talibans who came to Iraq are demolishing every aspect of life. They are doing exactly what they did in Afghanistan. The people became powerless. They don’t know what to do. On one hand, they have to deal with their sectarian and corrupted government and on the other they have to find a way to defeat these criminals.


When is this madness going to stop? Oh Baghdad, my heart breaks for you with every brick falling, with every blood dropping, with every tear flowing, with every Iraqi dying.
 

                                                  The Hanging Gardens and the Queen        21 February 2007

Set aside from the garage, our garden is my parents' source of nature enjoyment. It is a small garden but for my mother, it is like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. She is its Samiramis. Like a queen, she would go out everyday to make sure her people are waiting to see her eagerly. They are the roses and the trees.

Before she goes to school, she waters them all. They stand before her like the English people standing before Queen Elizabeth. Looking at them as she waters them makes her day.

I still remember the happiness of the leaves dancing as she waters them. I still remember the smell of fresh air each leave produces purifying our environment from smoke of car bombs and burning bodies. She would talk to them. "Mom! They can't hear you. They are plants!" I would say. "That's what you think!" she would reply. She embraces them with love, warmth and care. They are like members of the family for her. She would spend hours there forgetting herself. "Mom, you'll be late. You gotta go to work!" She would turn her face and look at me as if she was in another world and what I said brought her back.

It's a small rockery garden. Jasmine, orange trees, a banana tree and several red, white, pink, and yellow roses encircle the colorful beautiful rocks. In the center, two plastic, white chairs and table reside. It was designed and built to look like natural outcrops of bedrock. The stones are aligned and plants conceal the joints between the stones. At the corner, a huge date palm rises up crossing the electricity cable that used to provide us with electricity in the old days. We watched it grow since my father bought it 1986. Its dates bring joys to all of our neighbors. We would distribute plates full of its date to every house in the street every year.

She does not need a gardener. She was a good one. In the afternoons, she would go there carrying the tools like the bag and the papers she carries everyday to the school where she teaches. She would work there for hours without feeling tired at all. She would put on the yellow gloves, grab her tools and start by clearing the passage where the plants are aligned.

I wasn't a huge fan of my mother's garden but living in a small apartment today surrounded by four walls and a hallway made miss every plant there, every single leave, every fresh air they offered, the smell of every rose, the beautiful sight of the palm date, and the hanging oranges and bananas. My feet miss stepping over the green grass. My eyes are thirsty for my parents hanging out drinking the black thick Iraqi tea on tea time. An hour ago, I called them. They were having breakfast in the garden. It's a beautiful Sunny day, my mother said. She was enjoying her breakfast with my father before going to work walking scared in every step she takes, getting ready to hear about more people kidnapped and killed. Treasure of Baghdad