Memories of a Husband Lost

As today is my father's birthday and all of us try to honor him and remember him, I asked my mother to share some of her memories so that she too is included in the remembrance of our father. These are some of the memories and stories my mother shared with me the other day about my father for this blog.

She told me three stories, the first of which was in 1982. We were traveling as a family, by car, through Europe. While in Oslo and as we were checking out of a hotel the lady at the reception counter asked my mother “Couldn't you find a Norwegian man, why are you married to this Pakistani?” My mother looks at her and responds calmly “He is a good man.” (When I asked her why she didn't challenge her she about the racism, she didn’t want to get into a conversation about race with her, she was irrelevant. When mom tells baba this story he laughs and tells her “You should have told her I was just your driver!” They both have grace and humor in dealing with adversity, and made choices about which battles to pick and fight.

The second story she told was different. Baba's car broke down in a really remote far place in the middle of the day. Kuwait as you know is hot and humid and well it has hellish weather, so you can imagine what it must have been like to be stuck on the side of a hot dusty road. He spends the afternoon trying to get parts for the car and fix it and ends up arriving really late to the house. Hot, dusty, hungry and frustrated. He was probably hypoglycemic (which is something we his children are too :)). So he came home and picked a fight about nothing and went in to take a shower. Mom responds by going out for a drive and a walk to cool down as she was upset at how he picked a fight over nothing. She comes home a little later only find his mood has shifted and he was apologetic and wanted to take all of us out to dinner. He tries to get mom to agree by tickling her and teasing her and they both end up in Sami's room. Sami was on the computer and dad turns to him and says “Sami, tell your mom to agree to go out for dinner.” The rest of us also come into his room and mom says we all started tickling her too. She caved and laughed and smiled. We all piled into the car and had a shawerma dinner that night.

This last story makes my heart warm and is my favorite of the three. Most days of the week mom would get up and make coffee for both her and baba. But Fridays were different baba would wake up earlier and he would make coffee and bring it to her in bed. He would also go out and get breakfast or make it. She remembers the homous, foul, falafel and fresh bread. Or the tamriyeh he would bring. And some mornings he would make jazz mazz- egges poached on tomatoes or fateh. He was a caring man who loved his wife and family.

These are the stories she told me to remember him this year on his birthday. I hope to keep her talking and remembering so that we may all remember and honor a man we lost too soon from our lives and miss terribly.