"A Fistful of Memories"

By Harry Arabian

Forty years had passed since I last set foot in Lebanon. A week of celebration had gone by in a blur—endless embraces, spirited conversations, home-cooked meals thick with memory, and names once forgotten now spoken with ease. My heart brimmed with warmth. Yet, come Monday morning, I felt the urge for something quieter—a walk into the past.

“Do you mind giving me a ride to St. Joseph Children’s Hospital?” I asked my older brother over morning coffee. “I want to see Jack… you remember, my old classmate. He’s the director there now.”

He nodded with a smile. “Of course, although it’s up north. Our meeting’s the other way. You sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” I replied. “A walk might do me good. The hospital’s near our old school, right? I’d like to retrace those childhood steps.”

He gave a low chuckle, shaking his head. “You’ll find the path’s changed, brother. Tall buildings now stand where we once plucked oranges. Concrete channels replaced the mountain streams we used to follow. I’ll drop you in front. You’ll understand.”

We left soon after. I sat beside him, eyes wide, watching the city unfold like an unfamiliar story in a familiar script. What once was a sleepy hillside town had been absorbed by a metropolis—overpasses tangled like vines, towers of glass and steel pushing into the sky, their shadows blotting out the snow-capped peaks we used to sketch in our notebooks.

Then, amidst the unfamiliarity, a sudden recognition. A chipped facade, a flicker of memory.

“Is that the movie theater?” I pointed. “Where we watched every Clint Eastwood matinee?”

My brother burst out laughing. “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly! Of course. That’s the one. Though now it’s a supermarket. You should see how a fistful of dollars changed our town!”

I grinned, caught between nostalgia and irony. “Drop me here,” I said. “Easier for you to turn. I’ll walk from the next light.”

The Arizona Market stood proudly, still wearing the theater’s bones. Between two bright neon saguaros, the old marquee now spelled “Arizona SuperMarket.” I chuckled, whispering, “Some traditions never die.” Then, as if on cue, a familiar tune floated from the speakers—Enta Omri by Umm Kulthum. It pulled me back decades: sitting in a darkened theater, the opening hum before Ennio Morricone's whistle cut through the air.

Inside, the store smelled of lemons and cardamom, but the only show now playing was grocery shopping. I wandered, lost in it all, until a cactus display caught my eye. A modest pincushion cactus stood out—its spines gentle, like memories softened by time. I picked it up, smiling. Jack will like this.

The hospital was just a block away. As I stepped through the doors of St. Joseph, the receptionist eyed the cactus. “You here to visit a patient?”

“Sort of,” I smiled. “I’m here to see Jack. Tell him a long-lost friend from a very far place has come.”

She was dialing when a sound pierced the hallway—a howling coyote ringtone. I didn’t need directions. That had to be Jack.

Forty years and a continent apart had done little to dull the bond. All it took was a cactus, a tune, and a whistle from the past.