death

Mon Papa

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

Grande_mosquee_Kairouan2_SIt was 1973.  I was a high school junior.  I was scared to death.

Somewhere in the course of the school year, for some reason that I can no longer recall, I had signed up to join the “American Field Service” program.  I had signed up so that I could become an exchange student and travel somewhere abroad.  I had filled out all the paperwork, signed all the forms, gone through all of the interviews.  I was ready to travel.

To Germany. Or Austria. Or maybe to Wales.  I imagined myself chatting comfortably with English speaking people in beautiful European settings. I imagined just enough quaintness to feel as if I was somewhere “away”.

I never envisioned myself living on the edge of the Sahara dessert, under a red African sky, listening to the call of the muezzin as the sun set into the dusty hills.

But that is just where I found myself in June of 1973.  In the dusty Tunisian  city of Kairouan, surrounded by the 3,500 year old walls of the ancient Medina.  The air smelled of jasmine and heat and spice.  It was so dry that it seemed to crackle, and I felt the sun like a pressured weight on the skin of my neck. I hadn’t even known that the world could feel so foreign. Nothing was familiar.

I had met my Tunisian sisters, young women who were beautiful, graceful, charming and totally foreign to me. They all spoke English, but it was the musical sounds of French and Arabic that were swirling around me as I tried to make sense of my new surroundings.  I knew that they were all trying hard to make me feel welcome, but I remember that on that first afternoon, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of strangeness and confusion.  The whole world seem a bit surreal to me at that moment, filled with dangers and enticements that I had never imagined.  I met my Tunisian mother, a quiet, smiling woman whose kindness did nothing to alleviate my sense of dislocation.  I felt as if I had traveled all the way around the earth, leaving behind my sense of belonging, my sense of the rightness of the physical world around me.  I felt a little bit lost that first afternoon, sitting on the little balcony of the family apartment, desperately trying to understand the conversations of the family.  Desperately trying not to miss my own home, my own familiar family.

Suddenly I heard a man’s voice, calling loudly and somewhat forcefully, “Ou est ma nouvelle fille!?”  (“Where is my new daughter?”) I remember feeling suddenly embarrassed, inadequate. And supremely out of place.

Then he was there, Papa Barrack, smiling broadly and warmly, without even a trace of awkwardness. He wore a white robe and black plastic sandals.  He was not tall, but he was a force. His personality filled the room, embraced us all, pulled me in.  From that moment, I never doubted that I was a member of that wonderful family.  Papa Barrak made it so, and it was so.

Over the course of the three months when I lived with the Barrak family in Tunisia, I learned many, many things.  I learned a lot of French and bit of Arabic. I learned about a new culture, and new foods and new music. I learned how to dance to that music, how to make my hips move independently of my shoulders and my feet in time to my hips.  I learned how to cook and eat couscous, I learned about the mosques and about the beautifully haunting call to prayer.

Most of all, though, in that wonderful summer of ruins and Carthage and French pop music and skinny dipping in the Mediterranean, most of all, I learned that people are just people. I learned that a Moslem Dad in North Africa and an Italian Catholic Dad in Massachusetts had more in common than anyone could ever have described to me.  I learned that Dads of teenaged girls are proud and loving and protective and annoying and wonderful.  I learned that Mom’s living across the globe from each other faced the very same trials, and the same pleasures.  They shopped, they cooked dinner, they beamed when the kids ate what they had cooked.  They wanted more help around the house, but they understood when it wasn’t forthcoming.  I learned that kids are just kids, that families are just families, complete with love and arguments and annoyances.

From Papa Barrak, I learned that when someone is there to greet you, you can be at home wherever you find yourself. Even at the edge of the dessert, in a land that smells of jasmine and heat and spice.

Adieu, Papa Barrak. Repose en paix.

“All Things in Moderation”

/ momshieb / 22 Comments

My Dad knew how to have fun.

He loved life, and he loved all of life’s pleasures.  He laughed a lot, he ate well, he loved my Mother a whole lot.

And he loved a good glass of single malt Scotch.

I remember my Dad buying me a Scotch as a cousin’s wedding. I remember us sampling his array of fabulous imported Scotch gifts late, late one Christmas eve.

I remember the day that the oncologist told my Dad that his days were limited, that there were no more treatments to try.  The doctor asked him, “What will you do now?”  and Dad laughed, while the rest of us cried.

“Well,” he said, “First of all, I’ll have a shot of Laphroig.”

My Dad knew how to celebrate within reason.  His motto was “All things in moderation.” Sometimes he would add, with a twinkle in his eye, “Including moderation.”

Today would have been his 86th birthday. If I had my wish, I’d be sharing a glass of good Scotch with him tonight, looking back on a life well spent.

Instead, Paul and I shared a glass in his honor.

We miss you Dad.  We know you would want us to be laughing at happy memories of our lives with you.  We know you would want us to grieve in moderation.

We’ll try.

Salute!  A la famiglia.

SONY DSC

It takes a village

/ momshieb / 18 Comments

You all know the old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Well, tonight I am realizing just how true that cliche really is, and how much more there is to the story than simply the raising of the child.

About 15 years ago, I met a sweet young kindergarten teacher. She was gentle, thoughtful, very beautiful, and she possessed an innocence of spirit that made this older woman want to hold her close and help her through the struggles of public school teaching.   She and I worked together with many children, she as the classroom teacher, me as the speech/language specialist and special education connection.

I remember watching her mature, watching as she learned the ropes and developed her skills in teaching and in meeting with anxious parents.

And I remember, so clearly, one Valentine’s morning.  I was in her classroom to help with a reading lesson.  Suddenly, a group of men stood in the doorway, wearing black vests and bowties.  The tallest of them, sporting a wicked grin and an armful of long-stemmed red roses, said, “Dave sent us to serenade you!”  The four men came into the room, arranged themselves around the little tables filled with cut out paper and crayons, and began to sing.  The lush harmonies of a barbershop quartet competed with the giggles of delighted five year olds, and the teacher stood motionless in blushing beauty.

I remember when her sweetheart (another of my colleagues) proposed, and she accepted. I remember seeing photos of their wedding.

And I can clearly remember when they announced that they were expecting their first child.  She was still the kindergarten teacher, and he was teaching phys ed, keeping the hordes of active children in check with his firm, calm, gentle hand. All of us at school were delighted for them! It was such a sweet story, and we all basked in its warmth.

I remember meeting that sweet first born girl shortly after her birth, and I remember my pleasure when I found out that she was going to be a big sister.

When the second daughter was born, I remember attending an end-0f-year party with the parents and both little girls. I can recall, so clearly, shooing the parents into the back yard to relax a bit and to let their toddler play while I held the sleeping infant girl in my arms. I remember her smell, the softness of her golden hair.  I remember the laughs, at my expense, when other teachers called me “Nonni-wannabe” and teased me about my skills as a baby rocker extraordinaire.

I remember the shock that I felt three years ago when we were told that the younger child, the sweet golden haired baby, had been diagnosed with leukemia. I remember the sorrow, the helplessness, the prayers.

I wished on falling stars for her recovery. I picked four-leaf-clovers.  I prayed, I sang, I tried to make bargains with God.

With all of my colleagues, and with all of the friends and family and neighbors of this young family, I baked and made suppers. We raised money to help defray the terrible costs, we donated gift cards, we wrote checks.  We hoped, we offered encouragement, we engaged in every kind of magical thinking.

For three long, long, years this family has fought the good fight against a vicious and insatiable disease.  That little girl and her Momma were away from home for over a year, trying everything to keep her alive. Her big sister and her cat and her Dad stayed at home, working to keep the home fires alight.

For three terrible, deceitful years that poor little kid underwent every possible treatment to defeat her awful foe.  She struggled, she fought, she kept going against all odds. By all accounts, she kept on laughing, kept on demanding, kept on living as long as she possibly could.

Last night, after so much pain and so much suffering, her little seven year old body could take no more, and she succumbed.

How do we make sense of such a thing?  What can we possibly say to explain how such an unfair and unwarranted event could be allowed to happen? Where is God? What is he thinking? Where is the plan? What purpose was served here?

I have no words to put meaning to what this loving, kind, generous family has had to endure.

What I am left with is this: Every day is a gift.  Every child is a blessing.  Every life is worth everything.  We must all take care of each other, every day.  And in honor of this brave, strong warrior of a girl, we owe it to all of the children on earth to fight as hard as we can to ensure that they live well for every minute that is granted to them.

It takes a village to raise a child. And it takes a village to mourn a child, and to comfort and support those who are left behind by the loss of that child.

In honor of Meg,  3/25/05-7/4/12