Dr. Mai Saadeh's Affection for Her Departed Mother

Last month Mrs. Malaka Mubarak Saadeh, mother of our friend Dr. Mai Saadeh, passed away following a cerebral paralysis that defeated all medicine. Her funeral was attended by the religious bodies and by the whole of the Koura, for the many good works the departed had done the region in the field of education, together with her late husband, the poet Alfred Hanna Saadeh. Into the following verses the Doctor breathed her feelings of daughterly love and longing:

Gently — why have you departed, O my angel?
After today, is it true I shall never see you?

Through you life knew a generous giving,
and sacrifice, and goodness from your harvest.

Through you life knew dew and gentleness,
and faith, and light from your radiance.

Through you my hopes knew jasmine
that your hands strung upon my neck.

Can I forget, mother dear — how can I forget,
when love of you kindles the fire of my heart?

I see a trace of your spirit in my life
and in my children; in my house, your fragrance.

You joined reason and piety and virtue;
in my eyes there is no one like you.

You held learning the finest adornment, and so
Mai's adornments, mother dear, came from yours.

You knew a love that gives without taking,
while others take before they give.

However long I live in this world,
I shall yearn all my life for meeting you again.