Filed under: Family
I tried to come up with something to write about today - but I just don’t have it in me. The one thing that is on my mind right now is my mother. She fell yesterday and she broke her collarbone.
My mom has been sick for a good part of my life – she has Lyme Disease and was diagnosed when I was only five years old. In those years, she was bed-ridden and the image I remember most was of me laying on the living room floor, coloring her get-well pictures out of my Care Bears coloring books while the visiting nurse gave her IVs. I remember my mom smiling at me with only half of her face when she lost the nerves in her left side.
You would never know what she went through if you met her today. She is so strong and competent and driven. Every season she has been out in the field beside my father, driving the plow, unloading the beet harvester, delivering seed to the plants. She never slows down and she never stops, and they are a team. Without each other, they would be lost.
Which is why this is so hard on her right now. She deals with the pain of a broken bone – she won’t even fill her pain prescription. It’s not the broken bone that is breaking her down; it is the fact that the injury occurred exactly one day before harvest season. My dad is out there in the field alone, and she is at home, alone. They are separated for the first time in the middle of the busiest time of the year, and she feels completely inept at not being able to help him, to carry out her duty of farming alongside her husband.
And there’s not anything I can do to ease that for her. I can offer her comfort, I can send flowers to cheer her, I can call to make funny jokes and try to make her laugh. I try to tell her everything happens for a reason and a purpose. But she doesn’t hear me. I can see as I watch her eyes that her mind is going to be halfway in the field, feeling regret and remorse for her condition.
Her whole life she has been strong. She could have given up at any point in her struggle; I feel any normal person probably would have in the face of her obstacles. But she will not give up and she hasn’t. So although she can’t be where she wants to be – I just hope that she allows herself time to heal. I will always admire her for her strength and determination.
While packing up my cluttered room during our move, I had stumbled upon the neat, clean boxes of old board games that my sisters and I used to play. I had some of the best from our collection: Sorry, Husker Du, Guess Who, Trivial Pursuit, along with some uncommon ones: Girl Talk, M.A.S.H., and Mother’s Helper. Still shelved at my parents’ house were the classics: Monopoly, Hungry, Hungy Hippos, and CLUE.
I remember when I had brought them back to my house, only to find that forcing my husband to play wasn’t nearly as fun as having my older sisters together again to reminisce with me. The games were slow and monotonous compared to board games of today such as Cranium or Apples to Apples (our new favorites.) My husband whined and complained the whole time, and while I tried to feign excitement and suspense, I too, was bored of these boring board games.
So again they were boxed up and put back into storage, where they would collect more cobwebs and dust than they had when I first pulled them out from the basement closet at my parents’ house.
All the memories these board games ignited in my mind led me to one in particular - a somewhat recent memory between my husband and I. A few years ago we had been cleaning out his closet at his parents’ house when we discovered his old Monopoly set. It was in impeccable condition - all of the perfect green and red houses were still enclosed in their tiny plastic zip-loc bags, red-orange chance cards and bright-yellow community chest cards still in his possession. The money was neatly lined up in its carrier, perfectly aligned for the “bank teller” to conveniently resume their position. And even all the original metal pieces – the dog, the hat, the thimble, iron, ship, horse with rider, shoe, car, wheelbarrow and cannon – all still tagged and bagged in their original plastic bags.
I couldn’t believe the memories that lay across that big, bright board, all the memories contained in those tiny, silver pieces. If I were to play the game with my sisters today, I knew immediately the pieces they would chose. I knew who would inevitably obtain the Boardwalk/Park Place combo, and which one would proudly acquire a humble hotel on Baltic Avenue. The day my husband and I retrieved his Monopoly game from the closet, I dragged him away from his Need for Speed video games and forced him to play with me. And with his acceptance, I introduced him to the strange tradition of my sister and I: The Crappy Twenty.
Always in my family’s collection of games there existed a less-than-desirable playing piece, card, or item that was damaged in some way, shape or form. Whether it was a “Number Two” Sorry card that was stained green from spilled kool-aid, or a favorite Chutes and Ladders player that (in an act of revenge) had had its eyes poked out with a pencil, there was always one particular piece in a set that no one wanted. In the cherished Monopoly set at my parents house, the defect could be found in a single, green $20 bill. Somehow this bill had become so disfigured and discolored that it was now barely recognizable as such. The game inside the game was to continue to pass this bill to the other players (either secretly or openly) and basically not be the one who has it in their possession – as this person was the player of ridicule throughout their duration of ownership of the appropriately named “Crappy Twenty.”
When we broke open my husband’s set and I deliciously tore open every perfectly unopened package and untouched piece, I knew I had to introduce a crappy twenty. While usually the despicable items would develop of their own accord, the perfection of this set wasn’t going to allow for that, especially since I knew that my husband was not about to rack up the years of game-playing that this set deserved. So to fast-forward to the desirable outcome, I turned my back on him in the middle of our game, and unknown to him proceeded to destroy one crisp, new $20 monopoly bill. I crumbled it up in my hands, I sprinkled water on it, I tore pieces out of it.
Perhaps I took it one step too far. In my excitement, I grabbed a lighter off of his dresser. I intended only to “slightly char” or brown the tips of it. But in my attempt I accidently lit the twenty on fire. I immediately panicked and turned around to face him, waving this bill and sending sparks floating all over the room.
He immediately grabbed it to put it out, but not before the crappy twenty had officially become what it was intended to become – a charred, discolored, disfigured mess. My husband thought I was crazy – not only did I purposely destroy something of out of his flawless set, but I also almost started a fire in his house!! But it created a memory. As soon as we were finished and I had placed that twenty back in the pile, I had re-created a tradition and introduced a memory of our own.
What memories do you have of old board games?
Yesterday we went in search of a three-bedroom house for rent. We weren’t going to see inside the house yet; we just wanted to drive by and check out the looks of it from the outside. It was in a tiny town several miles away.
The directions we had to the house sent us on a main road. However, since we were already far from the main road, we took a little detour. This detour lasted about an hour longer than it would have taken us had we settled for the original directions. Sitting in a car for an hour and a half, winding down bumpy dirt country roads with a baby in the womb kicking the crap out of my bladder – I was less than a happy camper.
My husband, on the other hand, was calm as can be. As we met dead end after dead end in the middle of farmground and desolate woods, he happily pointed out attractive-looking houses, stopped the car to observe some deer munching on corn in a field, calmly took notice of the sun setting in the distance, and generally carried on as if nothing was wrong, as if we weren’t repeatedly being blocked from getting to our destination at every turn of a corner.
Meanwhile, I was fumming on the other side of the car, nearly pulling my hair out at how long this drive was taking us, panicking as the last light of day was winding down below the horizon. My lower back was aching. I couldn’t find a good position that would stop Baby from putting pressure on Mommy’s bladder. The radio was too loud. The sun was in my eyes. The window was making a strange whistling noise. We were going too slow. The ruts in the road were getting deeper and deeper. Another dead end and I was ready to dive out of the car and start running in whatever direction I landed in.
My husband is the epitome of patience. I love him for it…and hate him for it all at the same time.
“How can you be so calm?!” I finally scream in that high-pitched voice we both know so well.
He gets that smile that he always gets whenever I start this conversation.
“What is there to be upset over? We’re just driving. We’ll get there eventually.”
“We…have…been…driving…for…an…hour….already.” We were literally driving 25 miles per hour at that point down a dirt road that had no houses or any other signs of humanity for miles.
“Yeah?”
I could have ripped my hair out by the roots. But I am so glad that he is this way. There have been times when we were late for appointments, and even after I called the place to tell them, even after multiple reassurances by him that we would be there and they would wait and everything would be okay, I would still be sighing loudly, biting my lips, huffing and fidgeting and grumbling under my breath. In the midst of it, I will realize I’m being ridiculous, yet I still can’t seem to control myself or my racing thoughts.
But if there were two of us in the car, I don’t think we would survive.
That’s why I’m so glad to have him to remind me that nothing is that important to get stressed over. Alhumdulilla – he is always first to say. Before I even inhale to let out a scream – alhumdulilla, he says. And I am reminded and thankful to have such a wonderful husband. In moments when things DO go wrong, he is quick to say it, quick to remind me, quick to say “thank you Allah” for everything, with and without bumps in the country dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.
Today I miss my sisters.
All of them live in other states.
We used to ride bikes together down our dirt road. I had a blue bike.
We rode down till we reached the bridge. Then if one of us dared the other, someone walked carefully across one of three rusted steel beams that crossed over top of the massive ditch. We didn’t show fear in our steps - everyone pretended they weren’t scared of falling.
Later on we sat on folding chairs and play cards in the den. We’d toss blue, red and white poker chips onto the collapsible poker table. We’d eat cheetos and the orange cheeto mess would smear on the Ace of Spades. Then everyone knew who had the Ace of Spades. But no one said anything.
Once there was a tornado. All four of us walked down the steps into the basement. The lights were out. It was dark and we were in a corner. Nobody was scared. But our hearts beat fast and we didn’t want to breathe. Lightning lit up the basement.
They moved away when I was in school. I didn’t care. Today I miss them.
Yesterday I hung out almost all day with my little cousins on my husband’s side – the Arab side of the family. He has such a large extended family that whenever we go over to visit at the grandmother’s house, we are always greeted by a huge crowd. Uncles sitting together outside, eating, talking, smoking, playing cards. A multiple of kids in and out of the house, letting flies in as they whip open the screen door and forget to shut it behind them. Big plates full of rice with meat mixtures, yummy salads and of course, Arabic bread from the bakeries down the street.
I’m still learning my Arabic – and not the Arabic for prayers, but the LOUD Arabic that the uncles use when they start to get red-in-the-face over who threw the ace of spades in the middle of their card game. The Arabic that screams from the mouths of the aunts when they are disciplining their sons for running through the house. And the soft kind, like the kind my husband uses when conversing with his father. The Arabic the cousins greet their grandmother with, kissing her three times on opposite sides of her face.
But the easiest Arabic for me to learn is the kind I hear from the little cousins.
Yesterday I drew sidewalk chalk pictures with his little six-year-old cousin. She wore an orange and pink dress with pink sandals. I love how unrestrained little girls are in their dresses – no concept yet of modesty, she is free to twist and turn and sit however she’d like, whatever is most comfortable, dress or no dress. We drew a map of the different states where different parts of her family lives. We drew roads to each state with “X” marking the spot where their houses were. And we zoomed all over the U.S. to get to them. We never made it to drawing the Middle East, which surely would have included some planes or boats to get there.
We talked about chicken nuggets and big neighbor dogs and older brothers who take her to Chuck-E-Cheese. We talked about Mario Kart and broken sandals and favorite colors. She forgave me when I accidentally misspelled “Chicago” in sidewalk chalk and when I made the divider lines in our road too long. She laughed when I asked her if we were going to stop off at the zoo to ride the elephants on our way to Virginia.
She used simple Arabic words, mixed in with a little English. Her words sounded different from the heavy accents I was used to from the older aunts and uncles. She spoke slowly, so that I could understand, and when I still didn’t get it, she’d explain it some more in even simpler terms.
It’s not so much the words she used, but the way in which she used them. It was less intimidating to me to talk about chicken nuggets and broken sandals than to be asked questions about why I haven’t learned to cook Arabic food yet and am I going to breastfeed? I find that with the little ones only want to touch my stomach and feel the baby move, sit on my lap, cuddle me with no tension, no resistance, no awareness that I am a bit of an outsider to the family. No judgments about the little bit of Arabic that I understand, just lots of sincere hugs and kisses that can be understood in any language.
