I used to bring a hairbrush to my mom and ask her to comb my hair, and she would pretend to comb long beautiful hair.

She’d say one day it will come back.

When the missile barely missed our house and blew up in the backyard, my parents were relieved we had all been spared, until the next morning, when my mom stood shell-shocked before my dad, with most of my hair in her palms, and the rest on the floor.

I do not remember that particular blast, the years I was bald, or my parents’ frantic search for a cure. But I remember roaming a hustling Damascus souq with my dad, inside the old walled city. The ancient Roman Temple of Jupiter magnificently greeted us at the city gates, and the Great Mosque of Damascus leave-took us at the end of its archway.

“Do not let go of my hand,” my dad would warn every time, “I’d never find you in such a place.” Then we’d find our way to my aging professor-doctor, who’s long gone now, and to whom I owe having my messy frizzy and high-maintenance black hair.