Muslimah Next Door
My mother-in-law and I sat around the kitchen table this morning – me with my laptop open doing some office work, her flipping through a catalogue. Our conversation meandered all over the place until I asked her:
When did you and Abba (my father-in-law) really make that decision to settle here in the U.S. with us and make this your primary home base instead of your home in India?
As we tripped down memory lane together, she wove a story for me about how, though from the time we got married she witnessed our struggles (I endured a major illness and hospitalization two months after our wedding, and then another two months to recover, then got pregnant with D and everything that came after that, all while the husband was in his internship year of his medical residency, barely keeping his head above water) and wanted to be with us, supporting us. But my father-in-law wanted to them to live their lives out in India.
I remembered this too – how for the first several years of our marriage, though they visited us frequently and for long periods of time, he always declared that he would never settle in the U.S.
Until they did.
So what was the turning point? I always thought that naturally it was D’s autism diagnosis and the ensuing early years of all-consuming therapies, sleepless nights and struggles as we all strove to come to grips with our reality and find our happiness.
But my mother-in-law revealed something else to me – the moment that my father-in-law’s heart changed and he decided to go all-in with us. It came, she said, when they had flown in from India on another trip to see us. From best she and I calculated, it was the trip they made several months after A was born.
At that point, D had been diagnosed and was attending an autism school in Manhattan. In the afternoons a speech therapist came to work with him, while I juggled the care of baby A. We were in a one-bedroom apartment, just living paycheck to paycheck, moment to moment.
According to my mom-in-law, her son came to received them at the airport and when they all hugged, an emotional breakdown of sorts occurred.
And that’s when they decided to shift their lives to be with us as full-time as possible.
Perceptions are never what you think they’ll be. I looked back at my memories of those years and saw them for the difficult, strained yet also happy times they were. When two children were born to us during the hectic years of residency and fellowship in New York City. When I tried to figure out how to live with my in-laws in a small space. When I felt like my very act of mothering was being scrutinized at every turn, with an autism diagnosis on the line.
But it wasn’t. Or, maybe not in the way I perceived. We were all trying to support each other, help D, care for A, and figure things out. I thought I had a handle on things.
My in-laws saw a couple struggling, in need of help, lost in their own worries.
And, I initially chafed against that memory.
But later I thought, why? Why does it matter how one perceives a situation? Isn’t it the outcome that matters?
The end result was a family that came together to love and support each other, them doing as much for us as we did for them. All of us coming together for D, and later A and then H. And those beloved three kids, they also play their part in caring for and doing for their parents and grandparents.
I thought about D – how much of his life have I spent perceiving what he may be thinking, feeling, wanting, needing. And what would he say me to about my perceptions if he could?
Mamma – man, did you get me wrong sometimes. You thought I needed help. But I had things covered. You thought this or that about me, but that wasn’t my reality.
Who knows? All I can pray is that what matters is the intentions that we made to each other (and God) and the end result that we strove for – a family living together in love and support.
God willing – that’s the truth that all of us will be left with when everything is said and done.
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