Baba

Where do I start?

I am feeling so many things today.

Anger, disgust, sadness, resignation and finally, a deep thankfulness.

You don’t need to read all of this blog today; it will be exceptionally long.

I’m really just writing this for me today.

As I type this, I am bawling my eyes out.

Gotta have some history here first.

I think you all know about Mr. Piece of shit, aka shitbag, asswipe, dickwad, fuckface, fucktard, dickless wonder, hopeless loser, schmuck, asshole, prick, dipshit,sperm donor, loser, waste of space, douche, hemorrhoid….you know…the ex-husband.

When he left, boy spawn was in kindergarten and I was pregnant with girl spawn.

No job, no money and a tremendous depression that was debilitating to say the least. My pseudo parents were a huge emotional support for me and I would have been lost without them.

I had to get a job and I needed care for my baby. Boy spawn was in an afterschool program but it was for students, not babies.

I looked everywhere for a place for baby girl spawn and what I found was shocking and pretty nasty.

Filthy places, one daycare actually had shit on the floor, ground into the carpeting. When I asked about it I was told it was from a cat and the woman who told me this made no move to clean it up.

Another place had babies lined up in cribs and playpens screaming and crying.

I kept driving past a house, with a small sign in the window that said “Daycare” and a phone number.

It was easy to remember the phone number because it was it was almost identical to mine-only 2 digits different.

I was pretty desperate when I called and the lady on the phone told me to come on over.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was the smell-something good was cooking. She told me she was making homemade soup for the kids for lunch. Every room in the tour of her home was immaculate. Happy kids were playing in the playroom, a few sleeping babies in playpens in another room.

“Mama” was Lebanese and kind and warm and I ended up sitting on the floor in her living room with her for almost 5 hours. At one point, her husband “Baba”came in and joined our conversation.

I fell in love with both of them and asked if they would teach girl spawn how to speak Arabic. Mama said that would be an extra charge and we all laughed.

They had a son, “Gentle giant” a grown, married daughter, “Noodle” and a teenager, “Falafel”.

Yes, she is that Falafel. When I first met her, she made sure to tell me “Yeah, we’re not all terrorists”. Such a smartass mouth on her, I liked her right away.

They adopted us, we adopted them. My kids and I were welcomed into their lives and Falafel became the kid sister I never had.

We all became as Mama says with her Lebanese accent “famileee”.

We learned all of the cousins and Aunt’s and Uncle’s names and they all welcomed us as famileee too.

Arabic people have huge ass families too; absolute shitloads of cousins and they do not always have the easiest names. Even now, at gatherings, I will forget a name and have to whisper to Falafel, “What’s his/her name again” while she rolls her eyes at me.

Every Friday night, I would pick up boy spawn and then head over to pick up girl spawn and we would sit around in the backyard drinking Turkish coffee (love that shit!) and eating cookies or a cake Mama had made. At one point Falafel even bought me my own coffee cups so I could make it here at my house for all of us. I never have quite mastered it-Baba has always complained that it’s not as good as Mama’s.

Many a dinner has been eaten at Mama and Baba’s.

The food. Holy shit, it is some seriously good stuff.

Girl spawn could count to ten in Arabic before she could in English. I joked that she could grow up and become a spy. Of course Falafel taught me all the dirty words.

Falafel gave her first baby the same name as girl spawn. We refer to them as “big and little”.

Gentle giant had a fever seizure as a child and it had caused a brain injury. Although he was in his twenties when I first met him, he was about 8 or 9 years old mentally. Girl spawn loved him; we all loved him so much. He loved trucks and music and money. Not the paper money, he wanted change. I cleaned out my wallet regularly for him and he never wanted the pennies, “No, I don’t want that” he would say, all irritated, and then push them aside. “I want that” he would say, and then slide the rest over to himself.
He suffered from seizures regularly and when girl spawn was 5 years old, he had a seizure and died. It was right before his birthday. Girl spawn had picked out a wallet for him. He was buried with it in his pocket, with a picture of her and boy spawn in it.

I don’t see Noodle or her husband much, they live in another city, but when I do, she always makes me laugh. She has a dry wit, a deadpan delivery with a cool voice that sounds like she drinks whiskey every day. She was severely injured in an accident years ago and lives in tremendous pain every day. She can barely walk and has been in a wheelchair the last few days.

Mama has been girl spawns second mother and Baba has been her Daddy. Baba actually means Daddy in English. She has spent more time with Baba then she ever did with Mr. Piece of shit. He has fed her, washed her, carried her on his shoulders, let her walk up his legs and then held her up in the air, taken her and picked her up from school.

My favorite picture of him with girl spawn was taken in their living room. Baba is sitting in a chair watching TV and has his feet propped up on an ottoman. Girl spawn is sitting right next to him with her feet propped up too, suckin on a pacifier.

The day Mr. Piece of shit came to take girl spawn for her first weekend with him was fucking awful. She was 2 years old. He had never taken her for a weekend before (“It’s too hard” he would whine) Yeah, welcome to my world asshole.

It was a Friday and I was at work. I knew he would pick her up from Mama and Baba’s and as the time for the pick-up approached, my anxiety was overwhelming. When Mama called to tell me he had picked her up, we cried on the phone with each other. Later, after work, sitting in their backyard drinking coffee and crying with Mama, Falafel and Baba. I will never forget what Baba said that night.

“He took our girl”.

Baba tried so many times to talk to boy spawn and help him with his anger. . Always kind and loving and showing him how a husband and father should be. It upset him that boy spawn was so volatile.

Baba was diagnosed with cancer when girl spawn was 2 years old. Mama was visiting relatives in Lebanon and we lied to her and didn’t tell her anything so she wouldn’t worry and come home early. One time Falafel left their front door unlocked for me and early in the morning I snuck in while he was still sleeping and we made him breakfast to surprise him.

I have grass in my backyard because of them. No, not that kind of grass, a lawn. They had torn their backyard out and had their gardener bring over squares of grass so I could grade the dirt here and then plant it in my yard so the kids would have grass to play on. Falafel helped me dig and plant it- several thousand square feet of ground. Took almost 9 weeks to finish laying all the grass in.

He had a heart attack in 2003 and again in 2008. He has fought his cancer with weekly chemotherapy for so many years.

At Thanksgiving we found out his cancer had spread to his bones.
I fucking hate cancer.

We have all laughed together and cried together for almost 13 years. I cannot imagine living my life without them being a part of it.

I saw Baba on Sunday. He was tired and told me he didn’t want to go out anymore.

On Monday, Falafel called to tell me Baba had stopped breathing. Mama gave him CPR until the paramedics arrived and he was resuscitated at the hospital.

He has been in a coma since.

Now for the irony.

Last night, Mr. Piece of shit texted me. Wanted to know if he could pick girl spawn up on January 30th and drive to Arizona for his father’s memorial service. Told me he would return her the next day.

Wow, my ex –father in law died huh? Bummer.

Hmm…the last time I saw him I was laying on the ground with paramedics holding my hand at a softball field after fainting. I was in early labor with girl spawn waiting for an ambulance. He and his wife walked right past me and never said a word. That was in 2003.

She did not know him at all; she does not want to go. She had no relationship with him (by his own choice) she has seen him less than a handful of times in her life.

I said no. I told him she would be busy that day playing with the Kindle he bought her that she can’t use because he put so many passwords on it.

For Christmas he bought her a Kindle. Nice Dad, right? Wrong.

He told her she could not bring it home. He has never let either kid bring anything home. I have let them take whatever they want to his house. I asked him to let her bring the Kindle home and he told me “She doesn’t want to bring it home; she thinks you might do something to it”.

Seriously dickhead? She was pissed when I asked her if she would really prefer to leave it there. She called him a liar. So he let her bring it home on Sunday.

Except he and his wife took it from her Sunday morning and then put a shitload of passwords on it, including one to use my wi-fi here so that she can’t use it at all.

So I GTS’d the dead father’s obituary. (If ya don’t remember, that means, “Google that shit) He got scooped up on DECEMBER 5th.

Seriously? You’re just NOW telling your daughter and you want to trot her out for a fucking dog and pony show?

Back in December, Mr. Piece of shit told girl spawn he was going to visit his father in Arizona on December 5th because he was very ill. He took boy spawn with him. Girl spawn asked both of them the next day if he had died and they both said no.

Geez. Mr. Piece of shit lies about everything.

I was so pissed about this bullshit with the dead father and told him so in a text.
“You lied to your daughter about this?” “You had our son lie to his sister?”
I told him he should be ashamed.

Ok…I did get a little ugly and I did name call him a bit and yes it was childish and yes it felt really really good.

I have argued with that asshole on the phone before, and I regularly name call him here and to my friends, but I have never called him names.

I called him a Jackass…and then the doozy…

“I’m disgusted by you, I don’t like you, you horrible little man with a squeaky voice, you should be ashamed of yourself”.

Yup…I said that…

I’m not proud of myself…much…ok, I really don’t care.

He told me I was “twisted” and I should “enjoy your path of insanity you evil bitch”

I’m sorry, but it made me laugh for the first time since Monday.

The happier I am the more angry and pissed off he has become.

I told him to find a big rock and crawl under it.

His response was priceless.

“Twisted. Put it on Facebook freak”.

Yup…guess he has read my blog.

About 5 minutes after that, I got the call from Noodle’s husband.

Baba is brain dead.

That sweet, funny, loving, brave man who says “Peeza” for pizza and repeats the punchline to jokes three times and laughs harder with each telling of the punchline is gone.

Looking at Mama last night breaks my heart.

That woman has had so much fucking tragedy and suffering.

God.

Oh my God, I will miss him so much. I am such a better person for knowing him. Both of my children are so lucky to have had him in their lives.

I cannot think properly today and I am still crying and still in a bathrobe.

Girl spawn is devastated. So am I.