From Lisa
Comments:
Dear Barbara,
it’s funny, when I was reading your message, it felt like you were talking to me. Just like to a friend. I can so much identify or see myself mirrored in your way of caring about the family. I hope all is well and your son has recovered.
I would just not be able to go on a trip if one of my kids had a surgery. But I found that there is someone I can trust in a situation where I will not be with one of my kids on his trip. One of my sons wants to go back to Vienna, Austria, to visit his friends. We have been living in Canada now for almost five years and he found great new friends but he still is having contact with the old ones almost every day and he can’t wait to see them again.
He will go on the journey sometime this year and this is only possible because he will be staying with one of my two closest girl friends. Because we are living on low income, I would not be able to go with him, nor fly there if he gets sick. But I can trust my friend, who actually shares her first name with you, as I just noticed.
I know she will treat him like her own kid. He will turn eighteen soon so he is not so little any more but we moms tend to feel they are, don’t we?
I also know she will do everything in her power to take care of him if he gets sick which I hope he won’t, of course.
That is what I always heard and also experienced many times in Egypt when my now ex-husband and I were visiting his family over there when we were still married. Egyptians will tell you, when you enter their home, “You are brightening everything. You are brightening our city.” To which you reply,”No, you are the ones who are brightening up everything.”
Then they say to you that their home is your home. Even if you only ask for the bathroom they will not forget to add that. And they mean it. It is not just a polite phrase. And if someone takes care of someone else’s kids, like maybe a relative or so, they will tell you that your child is also their child. They will explain it a couple of times until they are sure you believe what they are saying. And they mean that too.
And this connectedness is contagious! When an aunt came around to visit us together with her baby grandchild, and the baby’s mom had not arrived yet, I knew this was my baby too and I tried to say it in Arabic as best as I could. I really felt it. I felt something I had never felt before because here or in Europe, generally it is so clear, these are my kids, these are your kids and so on and so forth.
I just wanted so much to just say hi to you and that reading your message made me feel happy and reminded me of lots of good things. The other reason why I am telling this little story about Egypt is, that I have got to know one “kind” of Arabic people, those in Egypt, quite well, at least family and friends, and that there were so many nice things happening and people so good hearted and welcoming towards me and my children that it almost hurts to know that many people have a bad feeling when they think of Arab people. So, whenever I get a chance, I tell one of my experiences, which are so different from living in a rich country. There are of course things that are not so great but who is there to say I like Arabs, I have a family in an Arabic country, they welcomed me, they fed me, they took care of my children, they did everything and they taught me things I had not known before?
I just remember you telling the audience about a Turkish woman who asked whether American women take care of their children or only care about their careers. I would not have asked this question maybe but even I had no idea how nicely children are being treated in Canada and in the States. How my sons are being treated at school, here in Ottawa, is almost healing for me since we did have different experiences back home.
I must be some kind of messenger
because sometimes I feel so strongly that I have to tell a certain story. I believe we are all connected and I was lucky enough to actually experience it in a big way. I am grateful for that but I am also grateful to hear things from you about your family.
It is so good to hear things from mothers or about mothers.
Thank you so much for sharing and for being you,
hugs,
Lisa
