Something to hold on to…

Unlike what my husband thinks, I don’t cry easily and in fact I do hate crying. It is more likely that I would cry out of anger than hurt, but then again, I get angry when I’m hurt. Thanks to him, I’ve cried rivers. They were not over him, they were over me and that’s it.

When I was a child, I would run to the phone and call my late nana (Allah yerhamha), and complain to her about my parents. She used to give mama some real hard time, and always defended baba although she was his mother in-law!! She would ask baba’s permission to send me over so that I can spend a few days with her, and he could never say no.

There were a couple of years that she spent at my uncle’s in the US, and another year spent at my aunt’s in the UAE, where I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call her. Whenever I cried, I always whispered her name to make myself feel better, to remind myself that there’s someone out there who can take all my pain away and make it up to me.

Yesterday, when I finally broke down and cried right there in front of everyone, I looked at my father’s eyes and saw how angry he was at me for losing my temper. I looked at my husband eyes, and instantly looked away. Then I avoided looking at mama or the husband’s aunts, I just couldn’t deal with what I might have seen in their eyes.

For the first time in my life, I looked down!! I found my lips trembling and saying her name. I wanted nothing in the world but her arms to shelter me from it all. I wished she were right there as healthy as she once was, yelling at them and telling them that they just can’t do that to me. I kept repeating her name to myself, but the more I did, the more I cried as if she just died again. I felt alone, helpless and oppressed.

I wonder if she would have taken my dad’s side on this one. I don’t think she would have. She would have never asked me to remain in a marriage like that. She maintained her wreck of a marriage for more than 30 years!! She got a divorce shortly after my youngest aunt got married. I was old enough to remember it all. I didn’t understand the reasons, all I ever remember is how agonized she was. How she used to wish he’d suffer for the rest of his life (my grandpa).

When I grew up a little I knew some of the facts from my uncles and aunts, not that they sat me down and told me the story, but it was more of bits and pieces that I overheard them as they argued about. He was all she knew, she married him pretty young. Apparently she was the more mature one and the stronger character nevertheless. The fact, that made him feel inferior that he would impose too many rules in the name of religion that he didn’t really live by at that time.

Of course, being the strong willed, opinionated woman she was, she never submitted to what she thought was wrong or unfair. He remarried, one time after the other to spite and humiliate her. He always said things like how he’d marry someone else who knows how to be a better wife whatever that meant. He even had a daughter who’s seven years older than me!! As far as religion goes, he was never fair to her or to any of his kids, including that daughter.

She resented him for a life time. I have seen first hand how her hate and anger consumed her. How her face would change when his name was mentioned. I could never like him, and I could never respect him. I always blamed him for everything that went wrong with my youngest uncle.

He was an absent father. I don’t even have any good memory of him as a grandfather!! He was cold and distant and had no compassion, all in the name of religion… and the sad thing was, he was convinced he was right.

I say all that about him, and I know he was a 100 times better than the man I am married to. I understand he did what he thought was right and he was blinded by his wrong convictions. Nevertheless, he killed her spirit and had her waste all her good years on his account. If anyone asks me, I think my nana died of anger.

This is exactly why I know she would have never told me to stay. She would know exactly how I feel right now and she would have never allowed me to have the same ending she had, not for my kids and not for anyone.

No matter how this ends, I promise you nana I will not let anger consume me. I will not hate him, for he doesn’t deserve any kind of emotion really. I will not let him kill my spirit, that spirit I took after you. Every time he gets to me, I will think of you and remember my promise to you. May your soul rest in peace.