رسالة الى ابنتي

Dear Daughter,

Still remember the moment I took you in my arms as a baby (my baby!) the day you were born. You were rosy, fragile and so tiny. I was so obsessed with your safety that I stopped breathing for a while contemplating you and congratulating myself for being the happiest man on earth. I have to admit that during those very moments, I totally forgot about your mother (you must be saying to yourself that men will always remain kids (yes they will!): a woman comes along and Hop! She makes us forget the other one in a blink of an eye).

Until that day, I thought I knew it all. It turned out that I knew nothing and that fatherhood was such a unique thing to savor.

I’d already chosen your name many years ago. I fell in love with one of the songs of Marcel Khalife and I just named you after it.

Don’t worry. I never sketched your life in advance nor did I picture you wearing this or that hat. Since you have been a child, your mother and I have been striving to teach you some universal values: colors do not matter; no limits, no boundaries but one identity: humans; Diversity, far from hindering us to get along, makes us richer and more open human beings. Freedom is worth everything; Listen up before you speak up; travel is the best book we might ever read.

We didn’t want you to be a copy of me nor of your mother. We might have been inspiring for you, that’s ok but if not, that’s ok as well. Great men and women might take wrong decisions but at the end of the day, they are still great because they decided for themselves. They didn’t let anybody do the job for them. However easy this might seem to you at this stage of your life, you’ll know how much courage and self–confidence are needed to get by such “milestones”. But need no worry! I utterly trust your maturity and brave, Rita.

When I was a kid myself, I used to be a fan of some Greek composer, Yanni. He recalled that his father used to tell him. “If the whole world wants to go left and you feel like going right, just go, it’s no big deal, it’s very easy.” I was proud of you every time we diverged on an issue and you managed to convince me of your point of view while, in order to show that you were right, you didn’t seek to prove that I was wrong.

Remember when you went for the violin while your mother begged you to go for the piano? Remember when you told me you would like to go for Political Sciences as your major? Remember when you asked me for whom to vote and I frowned upon you? It’s just your choice not ours and will always be so. We might have given you the key. Still, you are still the (only) one in charge of picking up the door and opening it.

Now that you’re a graceful young lady and a full fledged citizen, I have something in my innermost being, a vision, (not just a dream) that you and Hend will live in a country where you won’t be judged, hired or promoted by any thing other than you competency and commitment for the job.

My dear little daughter,

Get up early, read a lot but don’t spend too much time in buildings. Books are our best friends. Yet, a bookish education will make you end up like Candide’s Voltaire. Reach out and see the world first hand. Travel my daughter, leave a horizon behind and follow your relentless quest for the horizon ahead.

Ah! One last thing! Bourguiba once said “Happy is the person who can laugh at himself. He will never cease to be amused”.

So keep laughing at yourself my darling, keep being happy and keep the energy flowing around!