Egypt, The Flu, Tax Season, and All That

Last updated on: February 7, 2011 at 10:14 am by Nancy Qualls-Shehata

Egypt, The Flu, Tax Season, and All That 2011-02-07T10:14:00-05:00 Nancy Qualls-Shehata

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Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim

Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah

I know I have been uncharacteristically silent the last couple of weeks. It’s not like it’s been a quiet time in the world. There’s revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, the usual players are yapping on cable TV and life is swirling around me with its normal color and chaos.

I got knocked down by the flu, first of all. Mommies don’t get to take sick days, but I did take a couple of “sick mornings”, where I let the kids get themselves ready for school with Daddy’s help. So their socks didn’t match and they wore the wrong coats; they got there, they learned, they made it back. I stayed in bed not nearly long enough but eventually recovered – the fact that four of my five kids got sick as well, and then my husband, just made it that much more of a challenge. Alhamdulillah, except for coughing the accumulated junk out of my lungs, I’m doing fine.

On the heels of this, it’s tax time. I enjoy dealing with my finances about as much as I would enjoy getting poked in the eye with an acid-covered stick, and doing it while sick, well, that’s just a whole nother level of joy. Thankfully, I had done the major organizing and counting already so I didn’t have to do it all from the beginning. Now I just have to make files for this year so I can keep track of everything month-by-month instead of making a mad scramble at the end of the year. Yeah, we’ll see how that works out.

And then there’s Egypt. Ah, Egypt. My connection is that my husband is originally from there. I’ve been there a couple of times. I have friends there. Most of my husband’s family is still there. Of course I’ve been obsessively following the news and watching my status updates and scouring the interwebs for any information. I’ve watched the protests with horror, joy, amazement, sadness, and a sense of wonder that it happened so fast. My husband had planned to go to Egypt in the spring to see family and take care of some stuff, but now that’s off the table for only Allah knows how long. We are reduced to being a far-off audience, witnessing history from a distance.

Even that is complicated, because we have a family member in Egypt who is ill – an elderly uncle who broke his hip – so my husband and his New York based sister have been working the phones, talking to other family members about his care and trying to support those few who are willing to actually take care of this poor old man. Nothing is easy in Egypt. His operation was delayed because of the protests – the hospital was short-staffed and it’s not a really good place even at the best of times. So pile worry on top of worry, and that’s been my husband for the last few weeks. It stresses you out and fries your brain, but he can’t even take time off because there are bills to pay, money to be made, kids who need groceries. So he stumbles through the day as best he can, distracted and worried and still managing to do what needs to be done. All I can do is stand behind him and offer my support.

So, that’s been my month. I know that all of you are dealing with life issues, because, well, that’s the nature of our lives. Kids are sick, work is hard, there is no work. School was shut down but you had to figure out some way to study and take finals. Your car broke down. You had a fight with your mom. Someone made a nasty comment about your beard. The heat is not working. We deal with this stuff every day. Seems we go from stress to stress and the key is in finding the everyday beauty in our lives and being able to appreciate it even in the midst of the ugliness. Throughout all this, I’ve been able to stand proudly with my son as he competes in a spelling bee, I laugh at a silly joke another son tells me, I smile lovingly at my baby who has a face full of rice cereal, I brush my daughter’s hair, I chuckle at a funny status update. I refuse to get bogged down in the negative because the negative is a part of life, but only a part, and it does not define my life.

I will always appreciate the single flower that pushes up through the cracks in the concrete. That’s just my nature.

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