A Letter to Nanna:
my grandmother who died the year I was born
written by: Mounia Mnouer
Dear Nanna,
I never met you.
I never hugged you.
My father did not talk about you much.
I never asked much about you either,
yet, somehow, I feel connected to you.
You come to my dreams dressed in silk and pink,
and we exchange an eye smile.
My father mentioned you only as his mother.
But I knew I wanted to know more of you as I grew.
I had to insist, in quarantine, thirty-six years later,
to catch a glimpse of your strength, and wisdom
through the stories of my father
he shared through the distance of the coronavirus.
He fondly says:
Nanna was a strong, resilient woman.
I don’t know if it is because he is present in the countryside,
the Indigenous place where both you and he lived.
But I never heard him describe anyone with such admiration.
Nanna is what I call you whenever I look at your picture.
Sitting beautifully like a boss, with your Amazigh face tattoos.
I look at your picture, and I feel the bond between us, Nanna.
I look at your picture, and it tells me a story:
This woman raised her kids all by herself,
while her Amazigh husband, conscripted by the French, was off fighting wars.
This woman told Indigenous stories to cheer her kids up,
to teach them about survival in colonial Morocco
The same stories then passed on to me by my father,
do you know that?
You would be so proud of your kid.
You encouraged my father to go to college,
and without that, I would not have the strong family that holds me,
even if it meant going to another continent to pursue education.
I would like to thank you.
You gave me the opportunity to connect
to a historical heritage I have never seen,
despite the tough times of quarantine
You embody the strong Amazigh womanhood, Nanna.
I look forward to seeing you again in my dreams,
dressed in silk and pink,
and we exchange an eye smile.
- An Immigrant’s Dilemma - June 6, 2021
- A Letter to Nanna - June 10, 2020
- The Indigenous Stranger - April 21, 2020
