Ahmed beqqali, 19, Fez

Our lives are marked by inspiring, strong, resilient women, and when I think of all those traits, the first woman that comes to my mind, is my mother.

My mother died when I was five years old, our memories with her may be short-lived, but her mark is etched to me. She has overcome a turbulent childhood torn between a

messy divorce when she was a child and a less-than-caring father that she had to live with starting the tender age of twelve. My mother found herself kicked out of her mother's house after her new step-father exhibited questionable behavior towards her presence, she then travelled all the way to Fez to live with her father. She was astounded to find that her five brothers were uncared for, that their house was an appalling mess with their father nowhere to be found. She then took it upon herself to raise her brothers as their dad went through a series of short marriages with random women and lived a life of extravagance and opulence by himself, only addressing his children to provide financial care.

She worked herself out to the bone to provide care and love to her brothers and study simultaneously. She completed her studies and majored as a pediatrician. She then married my father, who was unemployed at the time, and lived with him, being the sole breadwinner of our household for several years.

My mother was an eccentric woman to say the least, but she was a magnet, with a larger-than-life personality and a magnetic charisma that pulled people towards her, and a sense of humor that could light up the whole town and a smile that could appease the gates of hell. She was strong and resilient, smart and strategic and tender and warm. She raised me to love life and never broke down in the face of adversity.

On a sweltering November evening, she came home with dead look on her face, holding what seems to be test results from a doctor, she sat down on her favorite green sofa and said to our nanny, and her right hand, “I have gastric cancer. Stage three, my chances of survival are slim, Fatima.” I don't recall Fatima's answer to that, but I still remember the look on her face, I still remember how they both looked at me immediately, as if they 7

mourned my future before it materialized before their eyes. My mother then proceeded to hold me tight to her chest and then said, in an oddly calm tone “If this is what God wants. Then it is what it is. My children won't suffer with me.” I'll never forget this moment. I was four, but I was aware of what was going on. I've always been aware. This is my curse, I knew too much, too soon. She went on to battle her illness for ten months. Her smile never left her face throughout this battle and she never made it clear that she was in pain. She celebrated our birthdays, she took us out, she traveled with us as if she wasn't in an excruciating state of being the whole time. Always hopeful, always positive, always strong.

She finally succumbed to her illness on a gloomy July evening, but she left smiling, and surrounded by everyone she loved. She lived loud and died proud. And today, whenever I feel down, I think of her and I think of what she would do if she was here, and I feel a

little less beat down. And that is inspiration to me.

8