A Cry from the Depths

To her who lived to make me happy, to cherish me, and to keep me — to my mother. To her who showered me with her love, her tenderness, and her affection as a child, and forgot me as a young woman — to my mother.

Mother, do you think that because I have grown up I no longer need you — that you should desert me in spirit? Yes, I no longer need someone to cherish me and keep me; but I have come to need the depths of your thoughts. I have come to need your candor and your guidance.

Mother, today I have come to understand the meaning of life. I have come to understand that it is not play and merriment, as I thought it yesterday, but toil. Today its riddles, so hard to solve, have shown themselves to me, and I looked for you to help me solve them, and did not find you. I saw you stern, and feared to open my heart to you; I saw you withholding, and feared to ask anything of you; I saw you dressing up the truth, and feared to show it to you.

Mother, today I have understood that life is happiness and misery. I came to pour out my happiness, and found no one. I came to cast my troubles upon another's shoulder, and found no helper. So I have become like one lost, walking without guidance along roads whose windings and straits and plains I do not know. How long am I to remain so?

O tender mother, do not withhold from me the happiness it is in your power to grant me — if only you would give back to me a jewel I lost long ago: the freedom to speak my heart.

Lilly Abu Nassar
The American School for Girls