A few entries ago, i was being the spoiled brat that i am and complaining about how bad a summer i was having, judging from how i absolutely had gone nowhere and done nothing and seen noone. Well, i guess sooner or later i had to learn what a REAL bad summer was.
On Saturday, my mom told me she and my dad would be dropping me off at my best friend's house to sleepover. I laugh more with her than when i'm with any other person, and she says that i always make her just feel GOOD, so i had a good feeling that after heartily complaining about a lousy summer, things were finally starting to look up.
Things were going well. Going great actually. Again as always, i laughed more with her than i ever do, and together we mastered all three dance sets during the dance-off in White Chicks due to my nagging.
Around nighttime my mom called and said that they had just been at the hospital because my dad hadn't been feeling well. I found out later that they had returned home because he started feeling better and the nurses said he'd be fine. (they were wrong... read on.)
After that my friend and i watched Titanic, it was my first time, until 2:30 am. I liked it a lot, and i cried once, when jack was telling rose, "you're so stupid rose! so stupid!" i dont know why. actually i do. there was some sentimentality in those lines that i just understood. and it got me. i thought it was funny, the first time rose jumped off a lifeboat back onto the sinking ship, my friend cries out, "i dont want to believe in love anymore! i'd rather be selfish!" and of course she's bawling at the same time. i reply, "isn't that what i'm always telling all of you? love sucks." and then, that scene where i cried, my friend says, "i take back what i said! i want love like that..." and i just start crying and reply, "not me."
it was also kind of funny/amusing when she said that it didnt hit her (the movie didnt) when she watched it and was around nine years old and in the fourth grade. but now, watching it again she was able to have the courtesy to understand its magnitude and of course, cry. "there were like thousands of people dying!..." "why are you laughing samiah!!" i dunno why i laugh. it was just cute how she realized that. i understand now that it is important to realize what is shown to you before you are unfortunate enough to experience it for yourself. i didnt before, but something happened the very next day to change that for me.
that was all saturday. sunday came around, we did what best friends do, and then i heard from my mom that they were back at the hospital because my dad had started having chest pains again along with a lot of other abnormal occurences, so he was in the emergency room, and thats where my friend's mom and dad would be dropping me back off. fine. what happened next was unthinkable for me. unreal.
me, my best friend, her mom and dad, we walk up to the hospital and wait a while for my mom to come get me. my friend's dad is thinking over whether to enter through the main door or the emergency entrance, when i see my mom coming through the emergency entrance with my brother. we go towards her, she starts crying, and says, "He's had a heart attack.."
i just kind of stand there, and my mom is crying onto my shoulder with my friend on my other shoulder kind of holding me and her mom holding me and my mom both, my brother a step behind us silently tearing and my friends dad trying to get us together. after his urging we head to the emergency waiting room, while i'm crying the whole way down. we all sit in the waiting room, my mom explaining everything thats happened to my friend's mom and dad. (family friends). after a while the nurse comes in and says two can go in. i'm not let in because of those who go in to visit, it shouldn't be "someone who's so upset". understandable. so i'm in there. and thats all i want to talk about for now.
over the last couple of days i remember feeling scared, for a real reason for the first time in my life. i also remember feeling stupid, just because i never thought it would happen to me, to my father, and it did. and i remember feeling very faithful, because i kept praying and praying to God, because in the end thats the only thing there is to do. even in the beginning its what there is to do. i also remember feeling supported, with a support i never knew that existed.
i belong to a society. a society of bangladeshi-americans. we're all friends, and deep as many of my friendships go, i guess a part of me always felt like it was in a way very superficial, not my personal friendships, but this society. Dinner parties, festivities, AABEA functions, dinner parties, dinner parties, dinner parties. You hear kids always complaining about gossipy women, the competition, having to be polite and nice, following all the customary rules or else you will look bad and make ur family look bad too, and boys that are confused into thinking they're ballers and what not. whenever i'd hear this i'd say, "its not just the bengalis you know, its everywhere." Yet even though i brushed it off, the superficiality and nuances, knowing that there was a lot more to us, our society, that was better, inside i think i still felt that there was something superficial, as if under the fun and friendships each family were disconnected. when we were together we were smiley happy and together, but when we were apart, we were just that, apart. separate. in our own worlds that no one else knew about. so together, we were just, superficial.
i dont think that anymore.
how could i possibly think that these relationships that i had been seeing and experiencing since the day i was born were superficial, when the moment the news broke almost every day my dad was paid at least a billion visits from more than a dozen visitors? and when we received a billion more phone calls on our answering machine? towards the later days of his stay at the hospital the nurses had to start kicking people out because they felt my dad was talking too much, getting exerted by all these visitors, and that we were all being a ruckus to the neighboring patients. and these guests werent just visiting either. they were cooking for us, taking care of my brother and me, even arguing with the hospital about their slow service. (everything turned out ok, dont worry.) there was no end to the support we were receiving, and i realized that i wasn't just part of some society. all the glitz and glamour of friendly smiles, good food, and fancy clothes were the only so-called "superficial" part. We, the people, the meat of the society, weren't. we weren't disconnected under the surface at all, we were more connected. i realized that i wasn't just part of some "society". no, i was part of some sort of unexplainable and wonderful family, created by decades of friendships of our fathers and mothers, linked by common culture and compassion. and i was thankful that i was part of this, that i am part of this. next time at a dinner party i plan not to slink by the table with all the older women, hoping they wont notice me, that i wont have to answer questions about my dress or how i'm doing in school. next time i think i'll walk up to each auntie and just give them the light of day that i understand we want to give eachother from the very start.
all this time i was staying at my aunt and uncle's house. during this whole ordeal i also learned a lot about what a blood relationship really means as well. i wont get into that now though.
they live in an apartment, no dish network, no dsl. when i came home today i actually hugged a couple of doorways in my house. i really hugged my house.
i will now pay a tribute to my brother. he played a big role in my experience and leaving him out or mentioning him only once at the end would not do him any justice. during this whole long ordeal, i really had no one but hi.and i dont think he had anyone but me. yeah, we had our mom and our uncle and our aunt and our pals, but our relationship is different. i feel it changing for the better as we both get older and realize maturity, but i think we did great during this whole thing. it would have been hell without him. he vented to me about how our aunt talks too much, let me vent back, sat with me and i sat with him, played cards with him and he played cards with me, walked down the long halls with me and i went up the elevators with him. lent my harry potter book to him and i didnt want anything in return. one day i'll need someone and he's going to be there. and if he ever needs anything, ever, i dont think i even need to say it.
my dad came home today. he's doing great. he has to, he's my hero. he's everyone's hero. he came home, so now we could come home.
i came home more thankful than ever in my life today. i wasn't just thankful for my big screen tv, my dsl, my dish network, and my one story house like i usually feel thankful for after a weekend of camping with my absolutely wonderful bengali family friends. this time i was thankful for God, for doctors, for angioplasty, for my friends, for our "bengali backup" (a loving nickname i just gave to our absolutely wonderful bengali family friends that prayed for us and cared for us and called and visited and just....make me so thankful), for my brother whom i absolutely adore and would have been bored to death without and really is my best friend for life as i understand it now, for family, for where i am, and for who i'm with. and of course, i'm thankful for my dad.
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