The hardest part wasn’t losing you. It was learning to live without you (Unknown).
I didn’t sleep well that night. In the middle of the night, I woke up, went into the living room and sat down in the dark, closing my eyes, not knowing what I was thinking. Just after a few minutes I felt a warm body next to me.
I asked her what the heck she was doing up.
She said she was missing a warm body next to her. She asked me what was bothering me?
I remember saying, I don’t know.
She asked if I would like to live here in Las Vegas instead of going to Phoenix and exploring the possibilities.
I said yes, I would like to do that but I don’t like to disappoint you as you were more interested in Phoenix.
She said indeed I did but that was before we came to Vegas. She also said she wouldn’t mind living in Vegas at all, but the question is – Why are we discussing the possibilities of living anywhere else while we got everything in Ottawa. We worked very hard to have what we got in Ottawa including our son, our friends, and our business.
I said, I cannot answer your question. It all started out when we wanted to go out and bug those guys in the real estates but when we got to the manufactured homes park, we saw how everything looked so beautiful, the clubhouse with all the smiling facilities, and perhaps most importantly the house. It took my breath away. It doesn’t matter how hard we work; there is no way in the world we ever be able to afford a house like that in Ottawa. Moreover, you saw the smile on the faces of the folks we met in the clubhouse? That was the reflection of what kind of life they are leading on that park.
Lynda said I am also thoroughly impressed with the house and the atmosphere of the park but kept thinking about Adam.
I said you don’t think I am also concerned about Adam?
She said I know you are but you’re a man.
I said what does it mean?
She said nothing except that men have a different way of expressing that concern.
All the sudden I got up and said let’s go down and have something to eat.
She said are you crazy? It’s 2:00 in the morning.
I said aren’t you forgetting something?
She said like what?
We are in Vegas and Vegas never sleeps.
When we got down, we were shocked to see just like during the day, everybody was on the machines and gambling tables testing their fortunes.
There was more than one restaurant in the lobby, and we picked one close to the elevators.
Once we sat down, coffee was served right away. I ordered pancakes and Lynda order eggs before we started talking again.
Lynda asked me what I thought about the possible reaction to my offer for buying the house?
I said I am not hopeful. Partly because the time I came up with the figure, I was also struggling about leaving everything behind and partly because I was concerned about the rate of exchange (The rate was 65 percent) which also it means that if we bought a house for $100, 000 here, we will have to pay $166,000 in Canadians.
Lynda said if we decided to live here, we can always extend our stay here and look for more reasonable house or alternatively we can go back to Cliff and upgrade our offer.
I got two issues with the statement that you just made:
- Why do you think it should be my decision whether to live here or not. Aren’t you going to live with me?
- You can call it my pride but I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of upgrading our offer after all that BS that She continued I fed to Cliff about affordability, etc.
Lynda said I want you to stop beating up yourself as I believe that you didn’t do anything wrong by making the offer that you thought was the best you can do.
She continued – we came on a vacation to relax and enjoy but it seems as we cannot stay away from mischiefs.
I asked Lynda if she believes in faith?
She said indeed I do believe in faith and in the doctrines of our religion which is purely based on faith.
I said then you should also believe that there is always a reason for the things happen to us.
She said we had this discussion more than once. What are you getting on.
I said my whole life is based on faith as I never seemed to have any control over things which have been happening to me. Consequently, I really believe that it was my faith which brought me to Canada from Chicago only to meet you.
She said it is a bit stretch but I will go along with that.
I said I strongly believe that it’s our faith that brought us here for a reason and that reason could be to thinking about living here in Vegas.
She said I agree with you in a way but we must discuss how we are going to deal with Adam.
I remember saying that while Adam is only 23 years old, he is very smart and perhaps more importantly he got our DNA. Furthermore, he had been working with me for a while, and he totally understand our business. I realized that there were numerous advantages for Adam to work with me and learn the business, but the biggest disadvantage was that if I were there, our clients always would like to deal with me.
Lynda said funny that you are saying something once Adam complained about.
I said what did he say?
He said almost all the clients feel so comfortable with dad because he had proven to them again and again and they always call for him. But dad also had taught me a few things, and I can help them, too.
I asked what was her reaction.
She said the only thing remember saying Adam that your time will come.
I said I rest my case.
What?
I said what all I am trying to say is that my absence from the business will help Adam to create his own profile with our clients. Furthermore, I am going to be there for him to continue to support on the phone and if necessary, I am prepared to go to Ottawa whenever he needs me. Please believe me when I say that your son is much smarter than me. He takes after you. What all he needed is an opportunity to prove himself.
She said are you trying to turn me on by saying that Adam takes after me. I don’t have any degrees as you two do.
I said degrees are not necessarily everything in the business. You need to have street smarts to go with the degrees hand in hand which Adam has and that he gets from you and your family. Think about your dad who had no degrees, but he had street smarts to run the business that he had developed, and he was indeed a successful businessman.
She said I think I know what you’re trying to say, and I don’t have any problem with your logic but what are we going to do with the house?
I said Adam can have the house, too. He can continue to live in the house with his girlfriend or wife without having to worry about buying a house. It will be relatively easy for him to start family. He wouldn’t have to go through what we had gone through to own a property.
Lynda said you’re a very generous dad.
I said not really.
She asked why did I say that?
I remember saying – Aren’t you forgetting something?
She said what?
I said – When my partnership with Mark Bows was being dissolved, Adam was working with us only for less than a year. Adam knew that Mark was doing this because he feared Adam and his smarts. One day Adam came to me and said, dad you don’t have to do this because of me. I can always find something else.
I said to him that you’re more important to me than anything else in this world. I also said, I have enough energy left in me and we can work together to build a new company, and he liked that idea.
I said to Lynda, I cannot ever forget that who helped me to get the company going – you and Adam. You both are responsible for any success in the business we ever had.
She said you are giving us more credit than it’s necessary or we deserve.
Don’t you remember, Mark and I had divided our office furniture that we had bought for the company, some of that furniture we brought home and put it in the basement to make it our home office.
Adam helped me a great deal when I was making marketing calls and you never stopped serving us drinks and appetizers all day along.
I said I remember once the Systems House people asked us to make a presentation to their people in their office in downtown of Ottawa. They wanted their employees to learn about BPR, and they knew that we had been successful in getting a couple of important contracts to do BPR. Unfortunately, we had no laptop as laptop those days costed almost $10,000 and we didn’t have that kind of money. So, I asked what were we going to do, Adam.
I remember Adam saying, we will carry our PC (Personal Computer with heavy monitor and Central Processing Unit). In any case, when we got to their office in downtown, we didn’t find any parking space nearby. We ended up parking our car a few blocks away. Adam carried the heaviest monitor, and I carried the CPU and when we got to their office, one of the guys asked what happened to your laptop, Mir? I looked into his eyes and lied – It was something wrong with it this morning.
Lynda said as far I was concerned, it was very nice to have my both boys right in my basement where I could keep an eye on them.
I said the point I am trying to make is that we are giving Adam the company that he helped us build.
She said what about the house?
I said it goes with the business.
She said how about all those things that we carried from city to city and paid movers a fortune?
I said we should leave everything as it is with Adam.
She said at this stage, all this is just a talk as we are not even sure if we will stay in Vegas.
I said I agreed with you, let’s go back to our room and try to grab some sleep.
