“Carry Me Slowly, My Sunlight” by Nuzhat Shahzadi

It's a cold, depressing day . . . freezing temperature outside (9 degrees F/12.7 C). It will continue through the week. Yesterday was the coldest in 40 years while America got or bought (by Musk/Bezos/Zuckerberg . . . ) a new president––cloned in corruption, crime . . . a crazy-conjuror of deceit and lies, casual-cruelties . . .

I pushed aside the war-stories . . . touching tales written in tears . . . I decided not to let sadness win, this time around. I grabbed memories to brighten up a bleak day, cast warmth on the coldness nestling around my barren garden, corners of the balcony . . . rooftop . . .

It's time to transition from "Life After UNICEF" to "Life with My Granddaughters" ––easy, comfortable . . . no need to pen the struggles, successes or defeats . . .

. . . Izara just turned 5. Her sister, Raya, is almost 8 months old. Caught in between play-times and pukes, coughs and coziness . . . bathrooms and "brush-naps" . . . my life flows. I feel I own these moments–- they are solely mine.

Fridays are our sleep-over nights. Izara arrives with her soft-pink blanket, pillow and bun-bun–– her ballerina-bunny doll. She usually wears a dress/frock on top of her Pajamas. (We live in a mother-daughter house––two houses under one roof, separated by a door).

 Izara in her pink Fluffy dress over her PJs

 Every morning, her dad faces a crisis getting her ready for her preschool-day care. She wouldn't wear anything unless in pink, and is a fluffy-dress. So, he ordered 12 pink dresses from Amazon . . . now she has considerable options to choose from.

She is still going through her "girl-identity" phase. In her world, all girls belong to "goodness." Boys are "bad." (bro, wait till she hits the teens . . .).

"Sun is a boy-planet," She informed me. All other planets are girls.

"How so?" I asked.

"it's like your son . . . a boy!" She was exasperated at my ignorance. She's correct–– sun sounds very much like son. She wins.

Normally, we read in bed and then tell stories of a princess, which unmistakably every time is Izara . . . share our dreams of chasing butterflies . . . we have some sort of conversations . . .

"I will buy your first car," I told her one Friday night.

"I want a pink car," she was enthusiastic. Pink is her copyright-color. No one can choose pink . . . she has given purple to Raya as her signature color.

We googled pink cars and our search resulted in a pink-1940s Mustang.

"I want this! I want this!" Izara kept pointing at the image on my phone.

"Yes! . . . I will stop ubering when you get your car, darling." I tried to calm her with a hug, "You can drive me around."

"Why?" she questioned.

"Because I will be very old by that time."

Izara thought for a moment.

"Okay- I will uber you to heaven, Bibijaan," she said with tremendous wisdom. "The sky is so beautiful."

Recently her mom has introduced the idea of heaven for the elderly as we haven't found a way around discussing death.

I checked myself from bursting into laughter. . .

She loves birthdays. She thinks every birthday cake is hers––even when it's someone else's celebration. She gets to cut the cakes with her cousins or friends on their birthdays . . . we are having regular conversations with her on this issue.

Izara assumes every visitor is supposed to bring a gift for her. She jumps ahead as the doorbell rings:

"Where is my present?"

Most of the time the guests arrive with gifts but if they don't, we lighten up the environment with other talks, divert Izara and apologize to our guests:

"She's going through the gift phase. We are helping her to learn not to expect gifts, always . . ." Guests have kind hearts. They understand––Izara's disappointment, our embarrassment.

As her 5th birthday was approaching, I wanted to give her two birthday-gifts––I took her to the Michel's crafts store, her favorite. She was allowed to pick 2 items. She chose a packet of cards (meant for Valentine's Day) because they were in pink and heart shaped. Then she picked up a big, pink ball of wool.

"Pumpkin, we don't knit…let's put it back," I tried to reason as we stood in line at the cash counter.

Izara made the other customers smile–– hugging the ball of wool, she said, "It's pink and soft. I love it."

Next, we went across the street to Rita's for ice cream.

"You can order a big cone-ice cream. Many scoops. This is your second gift," I wanted to make her happy.

"No Bibijaan, if it's too big it might melt and fall on the ground!" she said sensibly. "I want only one scoop in a cup."

. . . and Raya? She bounces with the music and laughs . . . and pukes and naps and says, "Baba ba ba . . ." My son feels proud. Both his daughters' first words were "Baba."

And I can't stop laughing when Izara rightfully makes an observation (with understanding) while eagerly helping me in tidying up their play-area: "You're old, Bibijaan. I am new."

My world is complete.