Inside, she left blank pages at the end.

“For your own memories,” she told them. “One day, you will write about your children. And you will remember that you were once small enough to fit in my arms.” Later that year, Yousef — now a university student studying computer science — scanned every page and created a PDF. He designed a digital copy with the same cover.

She smiled.

She began with the day her son Yousef was born — his tiny fingers wrapping around hers. Then Laila’s first word, “Mama,” not “Baba.” Then little Karim’s obsession with stars and how he would count them from the balcony.

Her mother had left her a notebook. She had left her children a book. But technology had turned it into something immortal. Years later, Karim — now a father himself — sat under a lemon tree that finally bore fruit. He opened the PDF on his tablet and read to his daughter:

He emailed it to his mother with the subject line: “تحميل كتاب سنوات الذكريات — نسخة للأبد” (“Download — The Book of Memory Years — An Eternal Copy”)

“Today, Karim asked me why the moon follows us. I said, ‘Because it loves you.’ He said, ‘No, Mama, because it’s shy and wants to hide behind buildings.’ I laughed so hard I cried.”

— meaning "A Book in the Years of Memories with Children" — and then the word "تحميل" (download) and PDF .

One rainy evening, she found an old leather-bound notebook in her late mother’s trunk. The first page read: “To my daughters — when you read this, I will be gone. These are the years of memories.”

His daughter whispered, “Baba, was that really you?”