Speak no evil?

Events have meant I spend a fair amount of time trying to recall childhood, teenage and young adult life experiences in an attempt to understand how I could have been so oblivious to how I was being viewed, how others felt, and how fragile and transient was the ordinariness I so took for granted.

As my own children traverse a very different route in life, I now contrast and compare.

One stark difference it appears is the definition of polite conversation

My son is mocked and jeered for "his" religion, is told that the political party supported by one third of his classmates would deport him and his family, and the class boys have had detailed discussions about parents income, and astronomical value of homes (in the context of the school's version of the national elections, labour supporters being mocked for living in houses worth less than 2 million pounds)

I cannot recall an exact conversation, but am still guided by a set of principles, that some things were private and should remain so, religion was never discussed, and money was never brought up, everything seemed fair on the surface, but just below the surface was the ugliness waiting to fatally surface.

Ghetto

How? why? when?
Everyone is talking about him
Was it while in school?
Was it while in college?
Was it because of the questioning?
Was it because of the failed attempt to recruit him?
Was it before or after certain events?

"They were Muslim, the family didn't socialise with others"

All I can think of is

Thanks God he wasn't Iraqi born, British schooled

Third time lucky?

So if you live in Europe and are Jewish and are feeling under threat you are being invited to Israel where it is safe

What if you live in Europe and have an "Airab" name or possibly even a "Muslimist" one and are feeling uncomfortable about your children being called "terrorist" or being avoided in case they "blow themselves up, or chop our head off" what do you do?

Your "home" country is one of the most dangerous places on Earth, you are not Arab enough, you are nowhere near religious enough, and even if you were, you were of exactly the wrong type of that religion for the time.

On the other hand for your type the only "welcoming" part of your "home" country is currently being controlled by the "chopping off heads- Muslimist- terrorists" so I guess the school mates might think that would be ideal for us

In the hope there is a better choice the advert could read:

"Middles aged couple, two bright teenage kids, Arab ancestry, ex- Muslim faith, European outlook, seeking welcoming third home"

I wish

I wish

I had the energy of youth
The determination of my other self
The drive of another time

When I ran just to keep up
When the days were never long enough
And the nights too short
When a week's worth of work lasted more than a hundred hours
When exams, deadlines and targets kept me moving

The years melted into each other
One decade following the other
In a blur
Until
Age slowed me down

And the days became longer
And the nights went on for ever
Targets insignificant
Goals miniscule

Counting down hours to the end of the day
Days to the end of the month
Months to the end of another year

I wish

I did not have the time
To think
To hurt
To cry

The cost of living

It is the first week of January, everyone has returned to work, and tomorrow even the schools start again.

The politicians have started their election campaigning, it is all about the money, what they will spend, how much they will save, how they will fix the deficit, how they will save the NHS.....

January is always a tough month financially, we get paid earlier than usual in December, and then spend more than we can afford for Christmas, then spend some more in the sales just after Christmas, add to that for some reason the royal colleges and societies all demand their subscription fees in January, so  I have spent a few days juggling, deferring, moving debt from one credit card to another and generally trying to limit the damage, acknowledging that for the next two months I will have nothing to put aside towards reducing the astronomical mortgage that is still outstanding on our home.

I go to work to find a pleasant surprise waiting for me, the numerous emails, form filling and essentially begging have been effective... the drug company has agreed to give my patient Carfilzomib free of charge.
This is a new cancer drug that is not yet approved for use in Europe, I am planning on giving it to my 73y old patient, who has had seven prior lines of chemotherapy for his myeloma, and who I first diagnosed eight year ago.

I am planning to give him the drug in combination with Pomalidomide, another relatively new drug, which is being funded through the cancer drug fund; a government funded pot of money specifically set aside for cancer drugs that have not yet been approved for general use.

Using the combination, if he were to pay for his treatment would costs £18,000 a month


In another part of the world, a lesser being is packing his bags and travelling back home to die.

He is 59y old and has advanced renal cell carcinoma, he previously lost a kidney, and his treatment options should include chemotherapy, antibody treatment, possibly followed by surgery, and long term dialysis.

In the West he might live for six years or more, but the West didn't think granting him a visa to come to the UK and have treatment funded by his family would be a good idea, so instead he will return from Jordan to Mosul, the second largest city in the apparently rich Iraq, to the city with the country's (previously) second most prestigious medical school, but where currently there is no chemotherapy, there is no antibody therapy, and even if he had surgery there is no dialysis available either.

Don't you just love this crazily imbalanced world?

After the guests have gone

It started out as a "family reunion" the distant relatives from Bristol were visiting, in addition to his only sibling, my father had made it clear that all the children were expected to make an appearance

Having cooked a rice dish, made the tabouleh, and heated the kubba I packed the car and started the trip to my parents' house, explaining to my son that when adults invited people over they made an effort to show off things they were proud of, his grandfather was proud of his ancestry and so would undoubtably show everyone the numerous yellowing photographs hanging on the walls, some dating back to 1800s.
His grandfather was also proud of his children and grandchildren and would be showing them off as well.

It went, in my father's words "very well", his cousin who was born and raised here, English like her mother, came with her English husband, they saw the pictures, admired the garden, tried the exotic food, and lingered on chatting for almost three hours after the customarily late, mixed Iraqi / English meal which had been followed by an early birthday celebration for the very soon to be five year grandson.

It was almost eight o'clock before everything was cleared, the washing up done and the tea consumed, and having reassured ourselves that our husbands were otherwise occupied, and our children were fed and watered we drifted into the kitchen and started chatting.

We always seem to do this, get together for whatever occasion at our parents' home, maybe once or more a year, and almost without thinking end up regurgitating past memories, tonight it started with a Nik Kershaw song, pop music I had enjoyed and they had heard as children, and progressed through two further decades of music to a time when I had already left, we then moved onto childhood memories of similar family gatherings, people we used to visit during Eid as children..'so how was um-Hamid related to us...I didn't like her", memories childhood "imaginary" friends, and of "haunted" rooms, memories of childhood lies to our teachers and parents, and memories of the subsequent punishments, memories of schools and studies, of struggling to understand what was required, and of helping each other out with homework, of older sisters nagging or bullying younger ones into preparing properly for exams.

We giggle together at our childish ways, we laugh out loud at what at the time seemed like such serious arguments.

"Will you go back for a visit?" our youngest asks, "the only time I would ever consider going back is if I was told I had a terminal disease..."

We talk about our isolation from our surroundings as a family back then, and our worries about our children's isolation here and now, and try to reassure each other that they will fare better than we did

Memories of our shared years, times of relative poverty and family difficulties, memories of our years of separation, times of real poverty and through it all the underlying danger, and as we talk, a trigger, a tear, and then a recollection.....

They brought the martyrs home....a motorcade with the flag draped over the first car....they brought four that day....we waited....the cars came down the main road......then they turned into our road....we were all crying and praying.....as the cars came closer Mum fainted......the cars drove past our house... it wasn't him.

There was an explosion in our area......he left his base without leave to check on us.....when he came home the next time he had patches of his scalp exposed.....his towel fell off his shoulder as he left the shower and I saw the bruises on his back....they had beaten him up as punishment.......

 "I remember Mum begging him to do something, he is my only son, if you apply he will be excluded from service....but he would not do it...."

"I remember travelling to Stockholm to meet him, armed with all the evidence, the numbers, the facts, hoping I could convince him to somehow leave....to somehow get you all out....but he would not do it..."

When we finally collect our sleepy children, our bags and plastic boxes of residual food, we hug each other tighter than usual, and as we kiss each other, we are all fighting back tears...

Our shared memories bind us together, but they separate us from those around us

My distant relatives from Bristol have been my hope, within one generation they managed to adapt, to be assimilated, but they arrived without memories like ours, maybe even two generations will not be enough......

Dissociation

My love.... everything is fate
My love ....it is not our hands, we were created for misfortune
Perhaps .....our fate..... will bring us together once more
When our desire to meet is stronger
And if lifelong friends
Deny knowledge of each other
And meet as strangers
Then go our separate ways

Do not say we chose...
Rather our fate chose for us



I sit in the corner letting them take the lead and tell myself it is for the best, but wish I could do it myself

I smile in the lift listening to the outcome of the great british bake off and tell myself integration is vital, and wish I really felt it

I lean on the wall watching the parents partake in the wine and nibbles and tell myself it is what is best for him, and wish I had something to say

I stare at the report he is trying to write about music and tell him it is vital for his education, and wish we could share the sounds from my childhood

I check the news for the hundredth time and

I tell myself

I made a choice

I am alive, we are alive

The alternative is but a memory...a...ruin

This song keeps playing in my mind

Did "I" chose?

Am "I" alive?