10 Oct Unicorns Smell Like Cotton Candy
Recently, I shared with a friend that I believe in magic, angels, compassion cures all hate, God speaks to me – regularly and most gently, and unicorns must smell like cotton candy. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t call the police with a 5150 (his Dad’s a former police chief so this term isn’t new to him). He didn’t even question me. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been friends for over 33 years and you’re accepted: 100 percent, authentically, and genuinely loved for who you are. It feels good.
It’s scary being us, allowing people into our world to discover who we are, because somewhere along life’s journey we got hurt: the kind of hurt that needs support and security; the kind of hurt that longs for love; and a quiet place to replenish our spirit so we can trust again. If this happens in childhood and your caregivers are in no place to provide healthy, emotional tools to nurture you, the hurt has long-lasting consequences. It festers and festers. You go to college. It festers. You become a teacher. It festers. You get married. It festers. You have children. It festers. You seek therapy. It still festers because you are unwilling to acknowledge it: openly, like a gaping wound should be addressed.
“Hey, did you hear?” my youngest brother was on the phone.
We rarely talk or get together but I love my brother: he works and provides for his family; he’s served in our Navy; he’s healing his PTSD; he’s going into his third decade clean from drugs; his natural intelligence is uncanny; he’s kind to strangers; everyone becomes his friend; he’s still able to love – fully, bravely, and openly.
Puppa’s health has been failing since he received a pacemaker in his forties. From there came Type 2 Diabetes, cancer in the lining of his large intestine (“it’s rare just like me” Puppa jokes) for which we had to travel to Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, neuropathy due to the Diabetes, and possibly the start of dementia, but who knows since he won’t add another physician to his already list of specialists. I’ve been bracing for this call all of my adult life.
“Nayhe, what’s up?” I parlayed Urdu over English.
“Puppa hit Umme,” my baby brother’s voice monotone, possibly still in shock. “He beat up Umme.”
“Violence wasn’t new to me or anyone growing up in our home.”
Violence wasn’t new to me or anyone growing up in our home. The leisurely life that Puppa was accustomed to in Pakistan didn’t exist in Umrica. We were immigrants – sometimes upwards of two dozen people – living in a three bedroom, one bathroom home outside of Chicago. We were not living on an estate in Karachi – a lifelong dream of Daada’s – realized after years of police service to the British in India. At a time where a minority governed over a subcontinent for their silks and spices, where our brown complexion was subservient to any white person, Daada and Daadi found the resources and saved enough wealth to start anew in Pakistan after Partition.
The “home”, large enough for Daada and Daadi’s youngest three children: Shaboo Chucha, Lucky Chucha and Napo; Daada’s spinster sisters (they did not shy away from the term, but were empowered at their rights to not marry if they didn’t find a suitable mate…which they never did) Chotee and Bhari; Puppa, Umme, Sarim Bhai, Sarmad Bhai and myself; as well as any visiting family; and servants to keep the compound running.
There was a menagerie of animals – every single one loved and adored by Daada; orchards; parking for cars and my Chucha’s motorcylces; and a water fountain courtyard welcoming guests as they arrived. Oh, the jasmine! The smell of jasmine makes me weep: not from sadness but from the deep love that sustains my people, my tribe, my ancestors!
Chotee and Bhari would delicately pick the flowers off the jasmine vines, securing them in their dupatas until they were brought inside to place in a handkerchief, slightly moistened to keep the flowers “alive” off the vine.
“Samita, nayhe,” the elders gently implored. “It is dusk and plants need to rest just like we do,” they said, as I tried to pry a flower off the vine.
Needles and thread would appear, as Chotee and Bhari, and whichever Aunty was visiting for the day, sat in the courtyard, under the setting sun, while evening prayers were called in the distance, and weaved hair accessories to their braids or buns. A smaller one, dainty as could be, was saved for the granddaughter running barefoot on the grounds, climbing up a tree, catching lizards, pouring salt on snails, getting dirty, and being watched with immeasurable love and pride by her Daada – me.
The compound – designed by Dadaa – to hold family gatherings, feed numerous people, to sing and dance until all hours of the night into morning and then “Please stay for breakfast; you’re here anyway” my grandparents insisted, was gone. Very few pictures remain. It has long been demolished giving way to a “very fancy restaurant” Umme says. “High society…” The kind of high society that never paid Daada or Daadi for the sale of the land knowing full well that elders leaving Pakistan, possibly fleeing political persecution, would die in Umrica, never to return. Wealth. Power. Prestige. We had all of that, and yet, my grandparents still worked, giving back to the community, and feeding the needy (and not just during Ramadan but all year long). They never forgot who they were or where they came from.
That and so much more was going through my head as Damon and I drove to talk with Umme and Puppa about what had transpired. Is this who I am: the byproduct of an abusive father and child-bride mother; of immigrants who under the harshest of conditions can do the most detestable of things, even to their children; a bearer of childhood trauma; and a broken human being? The gaping wound was no longer festering. Not at all – I was bleeding out. There wasn’t just one wound; there were many. Countless in all.
It’s been 18 months since I received the call from Sarmad Bhai. The call that would shatter me into a million pieces, spread over the last four decades, across three continents, and half a dozen time zones, only to be reclaimed after much healing. I chose denial for decades over death because sitting with my past and what has been taught to me by my parents – who truly did the best they could – is death by fire; a reckoning for your soul.
Umme and Puppa on their wedding night; our first family photo; me through the years.
The past did hurt, but the present can heal. Let me be perfectly clear – denial is much easier but no longer my choice. I choose to see my parents with loving-kindness and compassion. I have forgiven them. I have accepted them. I no longer abide by their concept of love because it no longer serves me. Most everything my parents taught me in childhood: the unhealthy dialogue, the emotional co-dependent behavior, holding love ransom if I would only fill-in-the-blank is not needed.
“Let me be perfectly clear – denial is much easier but no longer my choice.”
I have never met more giving humans than my own family: smiling at strangers, making friends along all walks of people, treating every being: man, woman or child; plant; and animal – with dignity and respect; providing for those in need with food, water, and shelter. I choose to pass these traits onto our children. The rest, I lay down, in the Earth, across three continents and half a dozen time zones, where it mingles with the jasmine vines, the dirt and mud of another continent – once collecting between my little feet – no longer weighing me down but lifting me. Lifting me to fly…towards peace.
Once again, I believe in magic, angels, compassion cures all hate, God speaks to me – regularly and most gently, and unicorns must smell like cotton candy, so why not add flying to that list!
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