Naseem.”
I look at him, asleep in his purified world.
“It means light breeze,” I tell the nurse, and taste the name in its entirety: “Naseem Deeb.”
The syllables flow off my tongue, limpid, rustling through trees, rippling over seas and fields and sand dunes. Naseem…
We had wanted a name as clear and vast as this country, his by birth, ours by choice, by wish, by need, by hope. A name he could breathe, but also one he could stand on. A heritage. A name that smelled of earth, the budding citrus of our fathers’ orchards, the nutmeg of our mothers’ kitchens. A name that recalled the country you and I had come from.
“It’s a lovely name,” the nurse says. “I’ll bring you a birth certificate form. You will need the father’s signature too. Have you been able to reach him?”