By Huda Majrakash

Time sometimes makes us wake up from our absent mindedness so that we can continue our struggle to lead a worthy life. There was an Arabic proverb that went like this: “Time is like a sword. If you don’t cut it, it will cut you off.”

And this also re-evoked in me the feelings of childhood ... Tours are still part of my life, and age has become more valuable while time has become a guillotine.

Packing bags and gathering memories have become part of my life. In every country, I bid farewell to a memory remains in a corner of my mind where from it might call me one day...

I have received the amount of love and friendly feelings that exceeded all the limits and hence bidding farewell has put a big burden on my shoulder. It is very painful to carry the quaintness of a country as well as the love of its beloved people and the farewell of the loved ones on your back...

The days — in my capacity as the wife of the British Ambassador — had made me enjoy much wider social acceptance and opened many doors for me that I would not have normally knocked on. There is also a predestination to be an Arab and this wonderful and distinctive mix was warmly welcomed.

In me, there is an original Arab blood with a Damascus descent and British nationality. When it is time to leave, I feel the pain, by virtue of the fact that our upbringing, emotions and feelings are part of our makeup, and it is painful for me to leave the place. How long I cry over the ruins is part of my culture.

The life of a diplomat involves a lot of mobility. This means that you have to put your life in a travel bag and your memories in boxes that are marked as “vulnerable to be broken,” reducing your life to adjustments.

Also, for everything in life you have to pay a tax with either tears or a forced smile, because you are on the performance stage, offering a role that is destined for you, where either you hear the applause loudly, or you remain in the shadows with a low profile.

Playing the roles of a champion require strenuous efforts during such a long journey. I have learned a lot over the period of time that contributed to an increase in my amount of knowledge and enabled me to smile in difficult times, in between the moaning of my country and the lights of compliments while cameras tend to break your hardness.

In diplomatic life, you do not choose your destination, and I have always hoped that Riyadh would be the last stop for my husband and that was. Today, the time approached for me to wave goodbye to a country that offered me the most wonderful feelings and care.

I had a unique familiarity with this country, in my capacity as an orphan from a country ravaged by wars. So everyone, whom I met, was patting me for losing my precious homeland and wiping from my eyes tears of passion that was always the most valuable and sincere.

Five years with the faces with whom I became very familiar and friendly... Five years during which I entered the homes of people with great happiness and bade farewell with gratitude... Five years during which we exchanged food and drink... Five years during which I shook thousands of hands with love and respect... Five years and I grew more admired...

Five years during which I have been an eyewitness to a comprehensive change of an entire society. In a blink of an eye, the closed doors were opened smoothly and walked confidently, without looking behind... the entire people turned the table without noise; embraced change without clamor; respected the laws without getting bored; and folded the page with all assimilation.

I respect the women of this country and consider them as the crown of the society, and thousand greetings to the youth of this country and their good behavior. I witnessed how the entire people crossed the sharp curve. I witnessed a great and decisive King who loves his people, engage in whispering to his children, sharing their joys and sorrows with setting the model of a resolute and merciful father in a Kingdom that required decisiveness and mercy.

I witnessed a Crown Prince — a young man who sowed the seed of joy in the hearts of the youth in his country... His faith in his youth was great and his confidence in his women was greater; he wagered on them and won the bet; won the love of millions with entering their hearts without permission.

I witnessed a great thing that history will script — an honorable phase in the history of the Kingdom, with the leaders’ faith in their people and their confidence in their conduct.

The equation was based on trust between the ruler and the ruled. And that people are being ruled with softness and lawfully because their master is their servant and justice is the basis for the rule of the King. We have an ideal example in the second caliph Umar Ibn Al-Khattab for both firmness and softness.

I see it is my duty to say a word of truth: When I entered this country, the faces were satisfied, and when I got out of the country, the faces were smiling.

How sweet for a ruler to plant a smile on the faces of his countrymen. A smile is a good word without letters and “your smile for your brother” is charity. How sweet it is to exchange this charity every morning!

While my husband and I are leaving this country with a smile, every Saudi man and woman are in our hearts. We loved you and wish you all the best and safety, and we repeat what we have learned from you: God bless you

(The writer is the wife of Simon Collis, British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia).