Because You Loved Me

Happy birthday momyeko. Sorry for not being with you on this wonderful occasion, so please accept my apology. The following is a tribute of love and gratitude.

I cannot find the right words (wala in English wala in Arabic) to express how much I appreciate you, love you, and am extremely grateful that you are my mom. But I'll try.

• Thank you for everything you taught me, told me, fed me, gave me, helped me with, punished me for. (Actually I cannot remember you ever did. Whenever I did something wrong, you cried. Walahi this was the most effective punishment ever. You must be an expert in child psychology. But I tried this tactic with my kids, and it did not work!! Guess it's because my tears were fake)
• Thank you for your true unconditional love, and your generosity with your hugs, & kisses.
• Thank you for your kind heart, your love for, respect of, & generosity with all people: related or not, young & old, weak & strong, poor & rich, sick & healthy.
• Thank you for your smile & sense of humor (In spite of your difficult childhood. Don't worry, I will never claim that I got my sense of humor from you. Yours is way better)
• Thank you for teaching me the love of Egypt, art, music, literature, film, politics, family, & tasty foods. (I must have learned my love of sports, math, & technology from dad)
• Thank you for giving me my OCD in cleanliness, my fear of birds, insects, heights, darkness, and specially animals (I will not mention the dog story here)

You know what, this is not working. With my poor memory, I will never be able to remember everything I need to thank you for. But most of what I wanna say is expressed best by Celine Dion's Because you loved me. (I can hear you say "yadee Celine". Please note that I never said "yadee Abdel Wahab, or Om Kalthoum, or Abdel Halim", since I love them too. I never even said "yadee Kathem" although I am not a big fan, because I am mo2adaba)

Here is what I wanna say (but please don't start crying):

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right
For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful mama
You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through
through it all

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak (wish I had your lovely voice)
You were my eyes when I couldn't see (that's before I had my LASIK)
You saw the best that was in me (cause you saw me na....la2 3aib)
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was
loved by you

I'm everything I yaaaaaaaaaam
Because you loved meeeee mhhhhhhh

Happy Birthday momyeko. Love you habibti.

nahoul