“Grief is just love with no place to go.” — Jamie Anderson
We decided to get married.
It was indeed an interesting experience to go through the process to say the least. We decided to get married at the Courthouse, located in downtown Toronto, simply because we had no choice. Lynda was Jewish and I was Muslim and neither of our religions was progressive enough to accept us as a couple. To be totally honest, we had neither the fortitude nor the desire to follow through their religious formalities.
In any event, it was almost closing time for the Courthouse when we got there as it was snowing like crazy. We had no clue whatsoever of the requirements to get married at the Courthouse. When we were asked about the witnesses, we said what witnesses? The guy who was in charge of the process was a sensible man. He suggested I go to the pub on the second floor and grab a couple of folks offering to pay them $10 each for 5 minutes of their valuable time. I went down grudgingly, followed his instructions decorously, and found a couple of drunks who were wholeheartedly willing to go to the Courthouse with me to be a Best-Man and a Brides-Man. It took less than 5 minutes to perform the ceremony as it was getting late and the guy in charge was in a hurry to go home. Anyhow, Lynda told me to give the witnesses $20 dollars each instead of $10 which I did. She was a generous woman.
Our marriage had no impact whatsoever on our daily schedule and we went back to doing whatever we used to do. However we managed to get away for a long weekend to Niagara Falls when the girls were with their father. That was a kind of honeymoon for us.
Now that Lynda’s house in Malton was sold and mom had her money back, she decided to buy a Children’s Clothing Store in a mall in Brampton which she ran with the help of her daughter, Estelle.
Everything was going just fine then Lynda started getting morning sickness sometimes in the month of May. Right away she knew that she was pregnant, which was confirmed immediately. Now we started looking at everything entirely differently. I don’t know how but she was sure that this time she was pregnant with a son. She remembered when she was living in the UK, a fortune teller told her that she was destined to have 2 girls and 1 boy. This was kind of funny as at the time the fortune teller made that prediction, Lynda’s ex-husband already had a vasectomy. He was permanently unable to get a woman pregnant and Lynda had no plans to get involved with any other man.
Lynda definitely loved the girls immeasurably but always wanted to have a son. Lynda was a great planner. She started getting ready for the baby. The girls were happy to learn that they were going to have a brother. Lynda started decorating the room and going around and finding specials in the mall and the girls were helping her, too. It didn’t matter how many times I asked her not to wait for me in the night but she never listened to me. She continued to wait for me around midnight with a hot supper even though she was getting bigger and bigger by the minute. She definitely needed rest. She had a fantastic slender body and gaining weight didn’t bother her at all. She used to tease me by saying see what your son is doing to me.
We managed to get away for a week when the girls were doing something else. Lynda had arranged a holiday in Bancroft, Ontario. We were booked in a resort on the water for a week with everything included. I am not cheap but it was kind of pricy for me as I had never ever been on any decent holidays in my life.
On the early morning of February 20th 1974, around 5:00 AM, Lynda woke me up and said you need to take me to the hospital right away as I am ready to give birth to our son. The girls were up, too. I hurried and got ready and asked the girls to keep the door locked and I will be back as soon as I can. It didn’t take too long to drive to a beautiful brand new hospital, Etobicoke General Hospital, which was located on Humber College Boulevard, not too far from where we were living. Lynda had already called the hospital and as soon as we got there, we found a nurse was waiting for us at the entrance. The nurse put Lynda in a wheelchair immediately and asked me to give them a call after 6:00 AM. I got home as soon as I could as the girls were scared to be alone. I called the hospital around 6:30 AM and they said congratulations, you got a son. Right away I asked about Lynda and she said she’s just fine. I asked her if it’s okay to bring our girls to visit their mother right after school, she said that’s fine.
I was totally overjoyed and told the girls that they got a baby brother and they were excited with the news, too.
I didn’t know too much about cooking breakfasts for the kids but got the girls to have cereal and drink some milk before they went to school. I came back from work at the store soon enough to warm up some leftovers for lunch and sent the girls back to school. When they arrived home around 4:00 PM, I took them in the car to see their mother and their baby brother at the hospital.
While I was totally jubilant with the whole experience, I had no clue about the customs regarding the treatment of the mother of my son. When we got to the hospital and on our way to finding Lynda, I came across a vending machine with apples and all of a sudden I decided to put some money in the machine to get a nice apple for Lynda. It turned out to be such a silly blunder that Lynda used to tease me for years that everybody else was bringing flowers and fruits for new mothers and she got an apple from the vending machine.
I don’t remember how we managed without Lynda for a couple of days. As soon as she got back from the hospital with the baby she was back in the kitchen cooking for everybody.
We decided to call our son Adam, highly recommended by mom as she used to know a shop owner in the mall where she had her store in Brampton whose name was Adam. She was so impressed with this man’s manner and she thought that it would be nice to call her latest grandson Adam. I asked her why she was so fascinated with that man. I remembered her answer – He is a nice bloke. What really surprised me was that friend Adam was a Muslim. She was that kind of person. I was happy that Adam was a popular name in both religions – Judaism and Islam.
Lynda was going through awful restless nights as Adam was keeping her totally awake every night. He always wanted his bottle and never learned how to close his eyes during the night until he was one year old. I felt helpless as I was consumed by both my jobs and never seemed to find any time to help Lynda out. She still wanted me to rest when I got back in the middle of the night, knowing that I had to go to work at the store in the morning. In order to avoid disruption, she started sleeping in the baby’s bedroom to make her readily available to Adam. I remember mom came to stay with us with the idea to help Lynda but on the first night, in the middle of the night, she pushed the pram back into our bedroom and said here’s your son, guys.
In the midst of all this, I felt guilty telling Lynda that my mom wanted me to visit home. I left India in 1967. Since then there were so many deaths in our family and like anybody else, my mom was also getting older by the minute. I used to talk to my mom on the phone a couple of times in a month and she always used to tell me that she’s not going to be around too long. The main reason for my hesitation in mentioning to Lynda about India was that I was expected to spend at least a month there and I was aware that was too long. I couldn’t possibly leave Lynda with three kids for a month with no help around.
Nevertheless, I found a few minutes in the middle of the night to mention to Lynda that I needed to go to India at least for four weeks and I was totally surprised that she didn’t get upset. She said you have been away for seven years and your mother has a right to see you.
Lynda bought all kind of things for my mom, brothers, and sisters. Those days there were no restrictions regarding the number of suitcases one could take.
I took off for four weeks in April 1974 when Adam was only two months old. Mom came to stay with Lynda while I was gone. While she was kind of extra work for Lynda but she enjoyed having mom around.
Travelling to India was a tedious journey in 1974. I had to go to London and take another flight to Bombay. Change airports and wait 5 hours for the local flight to Hyderabad. By the time I got to Hyderabad, I was tired – partly because of the time difference and partly because I made a mistake and travelled on Air India from London which wasn’t a comfortable ride.
There were several people at the airport that came to see me and wanted to chat with me. I pretended to be cheerful. Finally, when we got home, the first thing I wanted to do was to take a nap. Needless to say I was already missing my family back in Canada.
I should have stayed away from eating Indian food but it’s customary to go around and visit friends and relatives and eat at their places when you go back. In my case, I got sick and stayed in bed for several days.
I tried to spend time with my mom as much as possible but everybody and his brother wanted to come and see me. I wished there was a way to take her somewhere but she thought that would be entirely rude and discourteous. I did manage to see some of my old friends I used to work with. In essence that was a very long and depressing four weeks that I spent in India.
When I got back home, I was really tired but very pleased to see my family.
