Who's the Parrot?

Bloggers challenge #22: confessions 

I’ll write something that I wrote once before but I didn’t say it in details so I hope today I can. To every close person to me I’m known as “Matoo” –it means parrot in Arabic- and it’s funny how it all started.. The things that I’m about to write used to make me sad because I felt neglected but as I grew up it made stronger and proud of who I am.

My father is a Marine and due to that he used to go on missions, I’m talking about six months to one-year missions. The day I was born my father wasn’t around because he was on a mission in the Unites States, he stayed there for a while then he came to see the new baby girl who looks like his sister. My mom told me when he came most of the goodies went to the new kid. Right after his mission to USA my dad went to Egypt for another mission but this time he stayed much longer, he came back for few weeks and went back to Egypt for months, then I started telling my mom that he doesn’t want to stay with us and I wished I had a bigger mind to believe that my father is the hero but at the time I thought heroes should stay with the ones who love them but my father was barely home.

In one of his visits he came and brought a parrot with him, it was an African Gray parrot. I was so happy and excited –I do remember that because I was fours years old- and I felt dad’s love at that moment. After a while dad had to travel again but he left the parrot with us.

The parrot was a baby when dad brought him and I acted like his mommy when no one was around. My mom had to work and my older siblings went to school, so I used to sit with the parrot for a long time and I keep on repeating my name to it until the parrot was able to imitate my voice and say “Maitha” my name was the only thing the parrot can pronounce.

After couple of months my dad came home again but this time he wasn’t going back for a long time because his mission in Egypt succeeded. When he came back he realized that our parrot could say my name so my dad came with the idea that the parrot will be called Maitha and I’ll be called matoo, we switched the names.

That’s the story behind my cheesy name Matoo. My parents and grandma still call me that and as I grew up with this name I learned two valuable lessons.

The parrot represents the child that still lives in me, we all have hidden child in us but mine is awake even though I’m nineteen and I’m actually a kid but the child the parrot holds is different because it stands for innocence and hope.

The parrot situation proved the baby me wrong, because my father loves my family, my country and me! That’s why he traveled, he served a better cause and he taught me that heroes go through hard times but at the end of the day they are always loved and cherished for what they did to us.

I admit that at some point in my childhood I felt unloved because of my father’s absence but now I feel that I’m the luckiest child in this world for having a hero in my house and I look up to him because he handled lot of things just because of our happiness and our country’s security; maybe the act that my father did was small but to me he’s the knight who saves the village from the ugly monsters. I’m grateful for the parrot that lives in me because it made me realize that I have the greatest father in the world and I love him more than I love myself.

So who's the parrot exactly?

Maitha is the parrot who tries to be a great person just like her father.

_____ 

Hope and Love

Maitha the Parrot