BEIRUT — Departures, I’ve learned, happen in stages. An absence doesn’t fall all at once — it seeps in like light and air, invisible but somehow disrupting every detail of your life.
My good friend left years ago. And then, about two years ago, my younger brother packed his bags and emigrated to Canada, having met all the requirements for his application to receive the privilege of immigrating to that distant land of peace, stability and respect for one another — regardless of one’s profession, religion or social status.
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My brother had never thought of emigrating until Lebanon grew too tight for his big dreams and limitless ambition. Both my friend and my brother had been planning to leave for a long time, but I treated the idea like I treat bad news — something we always assume will only happen to “others.”
At first everything seemed normal. Our gatherings, our quick messages, our small talks about nothing in particular. There was nothing on the horizon to suggest that this daily life — with all its repetition and lovely dullness — would soon lose its balance.
Then came the day of departure and it felt as though someone had pulled the rug out from under my whole world.
I said goodbye to my friend at her home, far from the airport gate. She was trembling while laughing and I was laughing to hide the lump in my throat.
As for my brother, I said goodbye more silently: a long look, a quick hug, a broken sentence. I don’t remember the words, but I remember the weight that settled in my chest after I greeted him one last time before he left — without looking back, so my tears wouldn’t betray me, as they so often did whenever I thought of him while eating a dish he loved, visiting a place we’d been to together, or recalling a beautiful moment we once shared.
Then, over time, the absence wasn’t as loud as I had imagined. Nothing exploded. Nothing collapsed. It was just that — suddenly — the days became slightly colder and occasions less noisy. The places we once shared became empty and conversations more hushed.
Heavy word, light movement
Migration is a heavy word. But in reality, it’s a light movement — just one step and everything changes. A person moves from your couch to an airplane. From your home to another continent. From your tight-knit life to a wider space. From “here” to “there.”
You stay behind, counting the days, learning to adapt to a new flavor of solitude.
You stay behind, counting the days, learning to adapt to a new flavor of solitude — and waiting eagerly for the moment of reunion.
In our daily phone calls, I try to catch up with their quiet lives and the photos they send: snow-covered streets, peaceful homes, stories about a new life. I rejoice for them — sincerely. And I grieve for them — with even deeper sincerity.
Will I follow?
Sometimes I ask myself if departure is contagious. Will I, one day, find myself packing my bags too? Will I follow the same path? Or is staying also a kind of adventure — in a country that leaves you socially, emotionally and even physically unstable?
I don’t know yet. All I know is that migration didn’t take just them to another place — it took parts of me and my soul with them, leaving behind a world that is less full, more silent.
Just as the wounds of absence began to heal slightly, another friend recently left — to Canada as well.
I knew something inside me would break again.
Our friendship was one of those bonds that quietly establish their presence — like the light of a small lamp you don’t notice until it goes out.
On the day of her farewell, I sat and watched her fleeting words, her nervous jokes, her attempts to lighten the weight of the moment — and I knew something inside me would break again.
I didn’t cry. But something in my soul leaned a little to the side — and never returned to its place.
Shrinking world
The world is shrinking around me, and lifelong friendships that I once thought were as solid as the earth are actually quite fragile beneath the steps of departure.
Despite my constant attempts to fill the voids, I realize that something will always be missing — like an empty seat that no new presence can fill.
I’m learning that love, too, can be silent, distant — that friends and siblings who live in the heart never truly leave even when distances grow wide.
No, absences never go away. We simply grow used to living with them — like we grow used to living with a permanent shadow that never leaves. It’s a reminder that the most beautiful things — in the end — are those that we miss every day.
