سَنَرْجعُ يَوْماً إلى حَيِّنا
و نَغْرَقُ في دافئاتِ المُنى
سَنَرْجعُ مَهْما يمرُّ الزَّمان
وتنأى المَسَافات ما بَيْنَن
‘We will return one day to our neighbourhood and drown in the warmth of the hopes/ We will return, not matter how much time passes and how much distance will separate us.’
Sanarjiou, by Fairouz
And we will always return.
My grandparents’ garden, 2024.
As the seasons changed, I watched life unfold in my grandparents’ garden in Southwest Sydney. I saw the leaves fall and the blood-red pomegranates blossom. I remember Tayta Ahida squeezeing fresh orange juice from her trees for me when I was eight. I witnessed the new seeds sown and the olives pickled and stored.
Just as he had done countless times before, Jedo Mohamed gave me a tour of his garden so that I may notice the new plants flowering this spring.
The sweet jasmine that had taken over the archway, the figs that called my name, the bright pink flowers that had engulfed the pergola. The janerik.
“Guess how much the markets are trying to sell janerik for, Amelie?” my grandfather asks me rhetorically. “Forty dollars!” he exclaims, handing me the sour plum to snack on.
Its sharp yet satisfying taste reminds me of spring. It reminds me of my childhood, where my cousins and I threw miscellaneous objects at the branches as kids, attempting to harvest the sour plums furthest from reach.
**
I am six years old running parallel to the streams in the mountains of Lebanon, chasing my cousins. Under the summer rays, the air is crisp and the smell of woodfire wafts around us as we ran further and further away from our house, until it is hidden by trees.
**
The bombs fell like torrential rain in the Levant, sowing destruction in Gaza and Lebanon.
My Father’s parents, Jedo Mohamed and Tayta Ahida, returned from Lebanon a few weeks ago. As destruction festered, there really was no other choice. Who knew if the bombs were going to hit the airport, just as they did in 2006?
Since their return to Australia, Israel has continuously struck our homeland. The south, the north. The ceasefire is nothing but a false pretense of civility.
It was a risk for my grandparents to go in the first place. But it was clear they would not listen to reason.
“This country is not my home. My home in Australia is confined to the walls of this house. Lebanon is my home,” my grandmother simply stated to me as we sipped tea.
**
The sun beamed down, washing us in its warm rays as we sat in a boat, floating on the sea of my ancestors. Despite the beauty of Praiano, all I could think of was how close I was. We could almost reach it, I thought to myself, forgetting that there were thousands of kilometres between Italy and Lebanon. But still I was near, so near, that I had convinced myself if I looked close enough into the distance, I could picture the coast of Lebanon.
The Amalfi Coast, Italy. 2023.
**
Staring out into her garden at dinner, Tayta broke the silence by stating,
“I wonder what would have happened if I had never brought my son to Australia.”
A few days earlier, she had shown me photographs of her newly renovated house in Lebanon, its sandstone walls and large iron gates covered in grapevines and the same pink flowers that danced across their garden in Sydney. The house they had built had empty apartments for their children, so that one day, when they returned, they would once again be able to live together as a family.
Oh, to live together on our ancestral land, amongst the figs and pomegranates. Amongst the laughter, the chatter, the gossip; the community of my father’s village.
In 1977, she fled Lebanon with my grandfather and father, escaping the Civil War and the future conflicts that would plague the country for decades. But they didn’t just flee war—they also left behind the laughter and community of their village, their homeland, in search of a new life here."
Fifty years later, she was questioning whether it was the right decision.
I could not help but look back and forth between my mother and my father, my grandmother and my grandfather. If that had been the reality, would my life be my life? Perhaps we would live in Lebanon, amongst the gardens and the destruction. Yet, would my father have met my mother? Would my relatives exist? Would I exist?
**
In 2009, my mother’s parents, Jedo Mahmoud and Tayta Douha, renovated Jedo Mahmoud’s ancestral home in the mountains of Lebanon, preparing for the return of their six children and grandchildren in the summer of 2010.
Amongst the figs and jenerik, the ancient cedar trees and the olive trees.
Amongst squawks of the chicken and geese, and the giggles of my cousins as we ran through the garden, looking for the eggs for breakfast.
Six-year-old Amelie in the mountains of Lebanon, 2010.
I did not know it then, but these memories would serve as foundations for who I would be in the future. Climbing the mulberry and apricot trees with my cousins, dressing up in abayat and the tantour, traditional items of dress from Lebanon. I reminisce on the moments where I shared a room with my many cousins and aunties – a room lined with mattresses for all of us to share. Amongst the giggles we watched a firefly dance across the room, its glowing green light a beacon in the darkness.
Now, we remain separated from our ancestral land by the oceans between us. Separated by the destruction. Separated by the barrier of language, separated by the outcomes of our lives – separated by the fact that I cannot simply be Lebanese because we are the children of the diaspora.
**
On the 13th of November, Ain Yaqooub in Akkar, a remote village in North Lebanon, was bombed by Israel. Smoke and debris engulfed it, reducing it to nothing. As reported by Al Jazeera, beneath the rubble was “shredded clothing, dusty broken table legs, torn copies of the Quran, a red “I love you” teddy bear and a book on Aristotle amid piles of socks” – ordinary items (2024).
The remains? “Charred and crushed beyond recognition” (2024).
It’s a terrifying thought – to picture one’s own family buried under the rubble, buried in their homes, suffocating, charred and disfigured. 14,167 kilometres. 14,167 kilometres between myself and my homeland. 14,167 kilometres between myself and destruction.
Here lay a neighbouring district in the mountains, now destroyed. Here lay the remains of 11 Lebanese people killed following the ‘ceasefire’. Here lay the people of Syria who lost their lives fighting a dictatorship for over fifty years. Here lay Gaza, despite the annihilation of thousands of families, despite the countless warnings of genocide.
Here lies Balaad Ash-Sham (the Levant).
We reside in the West, grateful for the perceived blessings it brings, but constantly aware of our homeland’s destruction. Constantly aware of our disparity with the status quo.
**
Sometimes I consider how different my life would have been, had I grown up in Lebanon. Would my mother tongue flow effortlessly, a tendril of jasmine that hugs its environment rather than a twisted, barbed wire?
Or would I see life as my grandparents see it, dreaming of their next visit to Lebanon, Despite the hardship, despite the tragedy of their land?
Or perhaps I too would be found under the rubble, an outcome the world has deemed acceptable and inevitable.
**
My grandparents were conduits of our culture, carrying with them the legacy of our ancestors. They wanted a safer life, of course, but their hearts were tethered to their homeland. Every year they made their way back. Before she travelled this year, Tayta Ahida said she has amal (hope) it would be okay because she had her granddaughter Amelie, meaning my hope.
No matter the war, no matter the conflicts that have plagued my country over the last century, the Lebanese would always return. They grew from the ground just as the cedar trees had done so, and they would stand strong and proud like the ancient trees.
The bombs drop, the cedar trees sway, the wind spreads the seed. And we grow. And we flourish, because no matter what, olive trees do not bend and cedar trees do not break.