Back Back Then ...

On a hot afternoon, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the window nothing separating them except forty three years of age. They probably had nothing in common except a pure heart. They were lowering a basket for the keeper of the opposite grocery to put the two chilled Seven-Up bottles my mom had ordered earlier.

I was helping in the kitchen and whenever I walked back into the apartment, I heard them talking non-stop. Once about cars, another about Jamal Abdel Nasser, healthy dieting and weightlifting, football, religion, and who knows what else they managed to find of common interest. I have always been amazed at how easy it is for my father to talk to people of all backgrounds, ages, and mentalities. I do still envy him.

I looked at my dad and my young cousin standing by him and discovered how old my dad’s back has grown. His salt and pepper hair never told me he was getting old. It is his back. It has gladly carried the burdens and responsibilities of supporting a house throughout the years.. and it still does.

It is the same back I knew in my early childhood. Every weekend, as we left my granny’s house, we used to walk to the bus station for ten minutes which felt like ten hours. My dad would give me a piggy back and talk to me all the way to the station. It was a lot of fun seeing the same people who once seemed huge change into creatures shorter than me.

It was even more fun in the sea. I climbed this same back and felt as happy as a free dolphin. This is how I first loved the sea and later learned how to swim, .. hmmm .. or rather not to drown.

It is the same back that used to keep me warm and secure on cold winter nights and carry my school bag on chilling mornings.

It is the same back that I used to walk on. After a long day of working two jobs, my dad would ask me to walk on his back. Although I used to feel a bit shy, I enjoyed the game and giggled at the feeling of my small feet walking on moving muscles.

It was once the back of a sixty eight kilogram student at the institute of physical education, a field hokey player, a boxer, a physiotherapy specialist, a piano and violin player, an army officer during Sadat’s time, and a teacher at a high school.

It is the same back that still helps him get up early in the morning to ask me if I will take lunch to work or needed a blouse to be ironed.

More than forty years ago, these two men standing at the window would have probably competed over girls in the family. They would have compared whose back is wider than the other. I looked at them and wondered how old I look and feel. As I walked back to the kitchen, I tried hard not to even glance at my mom’s back.