Confessions of a Psychiatrist

Author's name: Hamdi Fouad Musilhi

I find myself celebrating those pagan rituals: candles in a clay pot, an idol of a small child surrounded by flowers, a sieve filled with sweets, and my little child rolling among the sweets and peanuts, like a small ball of syrup, the sound of children screaming while carrying candles, and the voice of Fatima, whose identity I don’t know, pounding the copper mortar and saying, “Listen to your mother and not to your father.” The most exciting moment was when I saw my wife stepping over a clay pot (the brazier) from which smoke saturated with the scent of incense was rising, and Fatima, whose identity I don’t know, was saying, “The first is in the name of God, the second is in the name of God, and the third is prayers upon Muhammad bin Abdullah.” My wife was resigned to the rituals with a happiness and smile that I had never seen in my life, to the point that it made me wonder if the happiness was due to motherhood or the happiness was due to the rituals. I will never forget my mother’s face, which lit up with a smile and laughter. I haven’t seen her since she suffered a slipped disc, and I smiled for her, just as I smiled before at my wife’s smile and my child’s crying, who was perhaps in pain from being rocked. The sieve and the deafening sound of the mortar, but I smiled in gratitude to my Lord who gave me those moments that I lived for the first and last time in my life