On The Beauty Of Life

Last night was a scary one in the Khattabi family.

In the evening I went out to spend some time with my fellow Wheaties – Josh and John. Around 10pm the boys walked me home, and as we approached my building I heard the familiar sound of Hamouda’s voice around the corner...it wasn’t his normal light-hearted chatter – it was his “business man” tone, so naturally my first thought was that he was called on one of his late-night business trips. When he rounded the corner I grabbed him by the arm. He looked at me, still on his phone, and I sensed the urgency in his eyes.

A second later Sa’id and Latifa sped around the corner with the same fear and gravity painted on their faces. Latifa stopped to give me a very cursory explanation: “Dounia is sick. Really sick. Soukaina is at home...stay with her tonight.”

And with that she hurried to catch up with her husband and oldest son who were already to the top of the hill.

I froze there, watching them disappear, and having hardly any idea of what was happening. Eventually Josh, John and I continued to my house. I said goodbye to them and ran up the 48 winding stairs to get a more complete report. When I walked in the apartment, Hamza was putting on his coat.

“What’s going on?” I asked him

“Somthing’s wrong with Dounia. She just passed out. I’m meeting them at the hospital.” And off he flew.

For the rest of the evening Soukaina and I pretended to watch So You Think You Can Dance and wondered what was going on with Dounia. Eventually we went to bed, and Hamza came home late. He told us that there was a gas leak in Dounia’s home, and everyone in her house was on oxygen in the hospital, including her husband Adil, her mother in-law, and of course her 5-month old son, Joey.

Soukaina, Hamza and I went back to an uneasy sleep. In the morning I woke Souks up to go to school, as I do every day. We had gotten news that Dounia and her family were out of the hospital and back home. When she came home at 11 we went to Dounia’s...a 20-minute walk into the dead-center of the medina. When we got there, we found Joey with both his grandmothers. Latifa couldn’t stop crying when she told me that Dounia was still in the hospital. The house was a flurry of anxiety as Latifa and Latifa (also the name of Adil’s mother) discussed the crisis with the family members who floated in and out of the house.

At around 1:00 we got a call from Adil, saying that Dounia had been released, and a little while later he brought her home.

Dounia and Joey rested upstairs while the rest of us sat in the living room, trying to release the stress we had all felt all day. After the emotional transition from anxiety to relief, we had to remind ourselves to laugh again. It started with Hamouda picking on me. Then with Adil picking on me. Then Adil’s brother (or friend? I’m not quite sure of the relation). Even Adil’s mom was teasing me. (The last time we met I had returned from one of my many trips to apply for residency. I didn’t realize she was in the house, and I had used some of my more “colorful” Arabic to describe my frustration at the residency process.)

Suddenly we were all laughing. A tragedy averted, we remembered once again the important truth: al-hayat zweena. Life is beautiful.