Today was my mother’s funeral. It was hard to lose both my parents so close to each other, but Mom’s health just hasn’t been the same since Dad passed away. At least now they’re together again.

When my brothers and I were cleaning up my parents’ home, I noticed an old tin filled with letters.  We knew Mom and Dad used to write each other when he was away working as a country peddler, but we never thought any of the letters had been saved.

Dad also used to write and send photos of our store and our family to the grandparents we’d never met back in Lebanon.  Some of those letters are dated as far back as 1902, the year Dad left Lebanon to come to Canada!

My brothers said our parents would have wanted me to have the letters.  I would love to share them with my own children someday, but unfortunately, none of the surviving members of our family can read Arabic.

I still remember a few of the Arabic words our family used to speak at the dinner table, though.  It comes in handy when teaching the children of the new Lebanese immigrants who recently started coming to the Island.  Hopefully some of their parents can translate those letters for me someday.

Apparently another Lebanese civil war began a few years ago.  It’s sad to think shootings and bombs are the only images my children and I have seen of the country my parents left behind.  It’s even sadder to think children in my classroom have witnessed things like that with their own eyes.  I wonder if my parents ever saw such horrible things before they left Lebanon for Canada so many years ago?

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