My 68-year-old grandmother and I don’t share the same language. She speaks Arabic and, while I can understand her, I respond in English. I like to blame my parents for this (and everything else). Raising us in suburban Melbourne, far away from where they spent their own childhoods in Lebanon, they didn’t think to teach me. Or they didn’t have enough time, focusing instead on their small business.
When my Teta (grandmother) came to Australia for my brother’s wedding last year, my mum acted as translator. Most mornings, Teta would make Lebanese coffee and smoke slim cigarettes while my parents and I sat in the front yard, listening to her stories. She made warak enab (vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice), teaching me the best rolling method as she went. Her voice filled the house as she sang. And at the wedding, she gave a speech in Arabic to the newlyweds. The delicate language and her warmth made everyone in the room tear up.
Abbir Dib with her Teta in 2004.
I am so blessed to have these moments. But I never fully appreciated them until recently. When Teta had previously visited, I was still growing up. My time was consumed by listening to Britney Spears and engaging in underage drinking – basically doing everything to be seen as “normal”. Maybe it was the fact that she was returning to a country on the verge of war that made this visit more special, and made me cherish where I came from.
After four months, having spent Christmas, New Year’s, and a full Australian summer together, it was time for her to return home.
Every time my mum says goodbye to hers, she weeps as if she’s a teenager again. But this time, saying goodbye felt different. I found myself thinking, what if this is the last time we would ever see her? I wondered if my mum was thinking the same thing.
Abbir Dib’s Teta giving warak enab lessons.
Despite the escalation in tensions, I could sense that Teta was grateful to return home to Jounieh, the city on Lebanon’s coast that she’s lived in her whole life. That’s where her community is, her grandson, her son, her sister, apartment, her routine. And even if she didn’t want to return, she isn’t a dual citizen like me. She couldn’t just stay in Australia because it’s safer.
What I find most tragic about my relatives in Lebanon is how accustomed they are to feeling unsafe; to the normality of war. When Mum talks about her memories of war as a child, she reminisces about playing with her neighbours while hiding from bombs. Now, though, she knows things are worse. “Back in our day, you could hide in shelters,” she said recently over dinner, as if she were harking back to the good old days. “But these new bombs, they go deep under the ground, so there’s nowhere to go.”
In the six months since we said goodbye, and as the conflict in the Middle East has escalated, moving from Gaza to Lebanon, I’ve developed the anxious habit of checking my Teta’s WhatsApp status throughout the day. I rarely call or message, mostly because I don’t want her to worry, but it is the first thing I do when I wake up and the last thing I do before going to sleep. “Active now” is reassuring. “Online 10 hours ago” fills me with dread.