Every morning I check WhatsApp to make sure my Teta in Lebanon is still alive

My 68-year-old grandmother and I don’t share the same language. She speaks Arabic and, while I can understand her, I respond in English. I like to blame my parents for this (and everything else). Raising us in suburban Melbourne, far away from where they spent their own childhoods in Lebanon, they didn’t think to teach me. Or they didn’t have enough time, focusing instead on their small business.

When my Teta (grandmother) came to Australia for my brother’s wedding last year, my mum acted as translator. Most mornings, Teta would make Lebanese coffee and smoke slim cigarettes while my parents and I sat in the front yard, listening to her stories. She made warak enab (vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice), teaching me the best rolling method as she went. Her voice filled the house as she sang. And at the wedding, she gave a speech in Arabic to the newlyweds. The delicate language and her warmth made everyone in the room tear up.

Abbir Dib with her Teta in 2004.

I am so blessed to have these moments. But I never fully appreciated them until recently. When Teta had previously visited, I was still growing up. My time was consumed by listening to Britney Spears and engaging in underage drinking – basically doing everything to be seen as “normal”. Maybe it was the fact that she was returning to a country on the verge of war that made this visit more special, and made me cherish where I came from.

After four months, having spent Christmas, New Year’s, and a full Australian summer together, it was time for her to return home.

Every time my mum says goodbye to hers, she weeps as if she’s a teenager again. But this time, saying goodbye felt different. I found myself thinking, what if this is the last time we would ever see her? I wondered if my mum was thinking the same thing.

Abbir Dib’s Teta giving warak enab lessons.

Despite the escalation in tensions, I could sense that Teta was grateful to return home to Jounieh, the city on Lebanon’s coast that she’s lived in her whole life. That’s where her community is, her grandson, her son, her sister, apartment, her routine. And even if she didn’t want to return, she isn’t a dual citizen like me. She couldn’t just stay in Australia because it’s safer.

What I find most tragic about my relatives in Lebanon is how accustomed they are to feeling unsafe; to the normality of war. When Mum talks about her memories of war as a child, she reminisces about playing with her neighbours while hiding from bombs. Now, though, she knows things are worse. “Back in our day, you could hide in shelters,” she said recently over dinner, as if she were harking back to the good old days. “But these new bombs, they go deep under the ground, so there’s nowhere to go.”

In the six months since we said goodbye, and as the conflict in the Middle East has escalated, moving from Gaza to Lebanon, I’ve developed the anxious habit of checking my Teta’s WhatsApp status throughout the day. I rarely call or message, mostly because I don’t want her to worry, but it is the first thing I do when I wake up and the last thing I do before going to sleep. “Active now” is reassuring. “Online 10 hours ago” fills me with dread.

Her most recent voice memo, sent a week ago, broke my heart.

“May God bless you because I am worried about you being exposed with your writing. Don’t worry about me, I am fine. We can hear the bombing but it hasn’t reached where we live yet. I love you all a lot, look after yourselves. Don’t worry too much about us, ya albi [a term of endearment meaning ‘my heart’].”

Abbir Dib (right) with her mum and Teta at her brother’s wedding.

I can’t tell how bad her situation really is because she will overlook her own needs or omit details to take care of her family. And it’s possible she doesn’t know the full extent of what’s happening because it’s not as if the government keeps people informed. They just hear bombs and decide what to do next.

The situation is paralysing. I struggle to read any news or focus on work. I barely enjoy hanging out with my friends. I am afraid to write about these feelings in case people crucify me for being political or say that I’m not close enough to the situation to feel this grief.

I wonder if any of the other 248,000 Lebanese-Australians and the Middle Eastern diaspora feel this way too. The daily dread of not knowing what’s next or if your family is safe. If, when the day eventually comes that we can visit where we came from again, it will look the same.

Grief manifests in weird ways. I feel guilt for the safety my parents afforded me by moving to Australia. Why do I get to be safe, while my grandmother doesn’t? I feel guilt for never learning to speak Arabic, and not being able to converse with my grandma every day. I feel guilt for being at house parties at 1am talking about identity politics, while she lives through another conflict. I feel guilt that I can’t bring her here to safety.

Abbir Dib is a journalist and opinion writer based in Melbourne.