Bambi has been silent lately, very busy with work while digesting life.
Despite this, she does not want you to think that she forgot about you, dear readers. Only a few weeks after Eid for some of you, Passover started for a few of you. Today, some of you are highlighting Good Friday (+ forthcoming Easter). May everyone be safe, blessed, and cherish precious moments with loved ones.
This being said, some of us, including Bambi, are grieving loved ones in their hearts. May everyone’s memory be eternal, especially Antoine’s ❤️. Bambi is grieving yet she insists on celebrating her faith in life, love, and in shared humanity.
As for war-related grief, there is no word to describe the sorrow for tiny Lebanon, for Beirut as Bambi is writing, for the Middle East, and for our deeply troubled world. May peace prevail after hell. May love have the final word.
Those of us who are highlighting Good Friday at a spiritual level (Bambi is one of them), may we all feel comforted and with inner peace. May faith be renewed while remaining grounded throughout life stages and adversity.
Especially in war times, may we remember the need for critical thinking and the value of love, despite all other coping-related feelings of sadness, fear, or anger. May we know how to keep loving one another…
If there is any lesson that Bambi will consciously remember from her dad’s life, it is precisely the love lesson. Not just for his family, but also toward everyone. Despite her deep sorrow, Bambi is relieved that her dad is in heaven because there are no wars there. May his memory be eternal.
Bearing the above in mind, and if she may, Bambi will end by sharing a personal story she recalled while driving to her town the other day. This story is war-related and it happened in a country she loves dearly, Germany. The story explains the title of this post.
Of note, she learned about this story 24 years ago when her now deceased German aunt (former spouse of her late uncle) visited Bambi in Montreal for three days on her way to visit her niece in Vancouver. May the memory of both of them be eternal.
When Bambi was four-year-old, growing up in war-torn Beirut, she hurt herself with broken glass (she did not listen to her sister Rania who wanted to protect her). She still has the skin scars of this injury on her right hand. To ease parental stress on her mom, her dad took their little daughter (Bambi) with him on a business trip to München, Germany. Her mom and her sisters remained in Lebanon.
While there, Canada opened its doors wide open to the people of Lebanon for immigration due to civil war. Her dad jumped on the opportunity to apply for immigration (thank you dad!). Thus, he had to leave her in München with her maternal uncle Nicolas and aunt Ingrid whom she had just met for the first time of her life. Antoine took the train to Stuttgart to the Canadian embassy. If she is not mistaken, and she will eventually consult documentation to confirm it (her dad was a highly organized man: He kept records of all his trips with whom, where, and for how long, wow!), he flew out to Canada from Stuttgart. He returned back to München to pick her up. All what she remembers vividly is that she went to daycare for a few days and this beautiful experience has marked her forever. Perhaps her memory is fading a bit with age, but somehow the number 18 remains on her mind (or was it just 8 days, but for a child, it feels more?). Anyhow, she recalls having counted the days away from her dad on her fingers.
Now, you may wonder why the “Bye train” in this post’s title? Well, Ingrid drove Antoine and Bambi to the train station. Her dad embarked on the train. Bambi stood up watching it moving far away in the horizon (with Antoine in it). When she could not see it anymore, she waved good-bye in the air while saying: “Bye train“! She then calmly gave her hand to Ingrid, without any shed tears, and she was ready to walk back to the the car. According to Ingrid, Bambi was very stoic in this moment.
With this childhood story, Bambi will now end by saying that the train of life goes on, regardless of our separations or losses. May the train of violence end soon in Lebanon and beyond. Enough, ouf. May the train of love knows how to take everyone onboard, not just her dad!
