On his birthday: My father is an exceptional case of love

Silence in love is speech, the look is admiration, and contemplation is a revolution, the extent of which only meditators know.

I naturally love this man, and I express my love for him with silence. My shyness has always prevented me from exploding that revolution that exhausted me in childhood and afflicted me in old age.

I can’t wait to sit in front of him and listen to him, contemplating the features of his face made me memorize the pores of his cheeks.

He is my father, whom I resemble, and happiness always flows from my eyes when people know me from the resemblance that unites me with him. My father used to travel a lot, sometimes for study and other times for work. In his absence, I feel lonely, and I find comfort in my words about him with my mother. I live among his things, I touch his clothes and smell their scent, and I talk to his pictures on the walls of our house.

My father returns from travel, and my sisters come to him, hugging him and exchanging kisses. As for me, reverence of him prevented me from running to him and embracing him, and I always wanted to fall into his arms, but it was shyness that prevented me from running to him. My father comes to me where I stand, with his arms outstretched, attracting me to him, so I live in that bosom that frees me from the world. My father knew that I was shy and silent and that I concealed my feelings. He would whisper in my ear “I missed you, Papa’s sweetheart,” and I wished to cry out “And I miss you,” but my cries were looking at him and holding his hand, so that I felt like I owned the world and everything in it.

My relationship with my father is very special; he is the reference and the bond, and he is the determination and strength in the time of weakness. I got married young and became a mother of three children, and I assumed the responsibility of the father and the mother, and he was the helper. I was free in my opinions, and he did not impose any decision on me. He didn’t force me to do anything, for he realizes that experiences give me experience, and that his umbrella in which I shelter from the blaze of the world will remain the safe haven. In my successes, my father was the catalyst, and in my failures, he was and always will be my savior. I passed the ordeal of separation, turning my ordeal into an endowment, and with his guidance a new life began. I am still the child in front of my father who listens eagerly and speaks with caution and wishes to remain a captive of that world full of legends, for I am the queen or princess and I am the strong one.

He never hesitated to encourage me professionally and to give me all moral support. He was always my first reader. I remember at the beginning of my career at Her Majesty’s Court in 2009, and at that time I was training in October magazine, I used to hear from time to time the murmurs of colleagues saying, “Oh uncle, it is her father who writes for her; soon and she will disappear, she won’t last.” These ridiculous situations saddened and frustrated me, for being the daughter of a great writer might wrong and judge your talent. When I came home loaded with all this nonsense, he would ask me, as usual, “What did you do today?” I would say what happened, overwhelmed with sadness, so he would say to me, “Look, my love, if I looked at all the people who criticized me, I would not have reached where I am. You must remain strong and not be fragile.”

He is Abdelrehim Aly, the father, brother, companion, beloved, friend and support; that man next to whom I feel that no one in this world is capable of harming me. For me, he is an exceptional case of love by all standards. How many situations almost broke me, but his presence by my side was always a blessing and help, for his words gave me strength, and they will ring in my ears forever and give me hope. Every year and you are my beloved, every year you are the support.