MOTHER

My son Khaled and my Mother in Law in Egypt

Here is my son and his grandma, my mother in law in Egypt.

Unconditional love, the glue that keeps families together, draws you into this photograph. This woman is a true mother and grandmother.  She gave birth to 13 children, 12 live.

She has dozens of grand and great grandchildren, and for the last 30 years she has been my teacher and my own mother.

She taught me everything about Egyptian culture, including how to speak the Egyptian Arabic language - and she also taught all three of my children the language.

My son, here, shows his boundless love for Sittoo, his grandma.  He and his brother and sister spent all their childhood summers with her, and she has been a big positive influence in their growth and lives.

This woman is a modern day saint, who was chosen to be my mother when I was 24 years old. She began then in a gentle way to dress my emotional rounds with her love and kindness. I remember living with her a couple of months out of the year several years in a row, when witnessing her near endless good deeds filled me with wonder and comfort.

I saw Sittoo serve a several course meal to a homeless man, and then send him on his way with some money, about which she told me you never let your left hand know what your right hand has given.

I also saw her raise a granddaughter from infancy, all the while being the pillar of the large family, keeping the house from sun up to sun set everyday. Together we always were when she showed me how to boil the whites with bluing for extra whitener, and exactly how to hang the clothes on the line for that wonderful Egyptian sun to complete the process.  In the afternoon, her downtime was sitting on the balcony with a dish of uncooked rice from which she would toss into the air and blow away the chaff. She called from the balcony to the butcher for a chicken and he came out from the shop below holding up two, "Which one," he wants to know.  After, that she motioned to the vegetable vendor and he loaded the basket she lowered with a rope from the balcony with the fresh vegetables we were having for dinner that day. By the time Sittoo and I came in from the balcony with the rice and the clothes, the door bell was chirping like a birdie. It was the butcher with the chicken already cleaned and quartered in a plastic bag. I remember that you didn't even have to salt the chicken at the table because it has a naturally, fresh flavor similar to salt.

When this boy up top here was born, it was there in Egypt.  Sittoo and her daughter Amal took care of him and me. After ten days they threw him a wonderful party and all the family and close neighbors came.  People brought the baby gold and other things to have for his lifetime. His daddy went to the bank and had his name printed on money to pass out to the people who congratulated us.

He was a big, beautiful baby, so Sittoo wasn't taking any chances with people laying eyes on him and with jealous feelings - so she shored him up with all kinds of folklore rituals for protection.  Once, when he was crying, and all the remedies she knew of weren't working, she cut out a paper doll and with a pin, she poked a hole in the doll for every person she could think of that looked at him. Then, she burned the paper over the baby and broke an egg over his back as he lay on his belly on the bed.  The yolk ran all down around his back and then under his tummy and he stopped crying.

The next year, we arrived in Cairo just before baby Khaled's first birthday, and between the trip and the time change, he began to cry.  He cried and cried and cried.  For days. Almost a full three days .. Night and day.  Not just crying. He was screaming non stop, which brought on red dots and spots all over his face, concentrated though on his forehead. There was a doctor in the family, and several medical professionals who all said that there was nothing physically wrong with him, so we all just kept passing the baby and trying to comfort him.  Sittoo never tired.  She never once gave a fed up glance, even. This baby could scream. He only stopped to catch his breath for a matter of moments before resuming the shrill. For days and nights non stop. It was a nightmare.

I learned from such an experience though, how patient and kind all of these people were - Especially Sittoo. She was the epitome of a mother and a grandmother. I learned then that when someone in the family is suffering, for whatever reason, they will be loved and supported for as long as it takes, and with a kind heart and open arms.

So, now that Sittoo is in her 90's and much like an infant according to her increasing physical limitations, she is surrounded by her children and grandchildren round the clock for love and care. She is revered as the queen of the family, and there isn't a single thing any of us wouldn't do for her.

I think what I enjoyed the most about Sittoo over the years was her lack of ego - or at least her lack of inappropriate ego. She was so easy to be with because she wasn't controlling in the least, and had not an ounce of passive aggression. Just pure real kindness - and funny!  She is very funny, really clever, and loves to laugh.

Even though I arrived in this family broken, I felt understood with Sittoo, I felt validated, I felt loved. This I know is what she is surrounded by now, and that just makes me smile.