I was organizing my bookshelves today. I lined Psychology: Themes and Variations, and Human Resource Management against Human-Computer Interactions, and The Art of Play Production. OK, so the subjects don’t go together, but the books’ heights do. Esthetics, people.
After placing a couple of photo frames and candles to fill empty spots on the top shelves, I spotted a thick paper folder holding a heap of stapled papers at the very bottom. I pulled it out with one hand. But one hand wasn’t strong enough. The papers scattered on the floor.
Sitting cross-legged, I went through the pile. There, in front of me, were the non-fiction stories I wrote for my first undergraduate writing course.
I was instantly reminded about why I love to write, and why I choose to document events.
Remember the time you found old photos and went through them, one by one, reminiscing about the good old days? Well, this is the same. Stories are like pictures. They are pictures. They capture a moment in your life, and stand as a token of your past, the people you knew, who you were, what you had to go through, and who you’ve become.
The written word is strong. And permanent. Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk in Babylonia, spent his life searching for the source of perpetuity. He achieved eternity, but not by being physically immortal. It was through his epic—the oldest written story on Earth—that he’ll always be remembered.
At the time I wrote these stories, I didn’t think they would mean anything to me, or that I’ll ever come back to them. But I’m really glad I have them. I don’t mean to use a cheesy cliché, but they do keep the past alive.
Below is one of these old stories. The kids in it moved overseas a year after this incident. That was 2002. I hadn’t taken pictures with them, but this story paints them well. Adorableness overload.
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Babysitting Lana and Sam
By Nadia Qasmieh
By Nadia Qasmieh
10am Thursday, the doorbell rang—once, twice, three times. Our neighbor just had a baby and needed someone to look after her other two kids every morning for a couple of weeks. Children had always been part of my life since I tutored, so I offered to babysit.
“COMING!” I yelled as I sauntered down the hall.
I opened the door. Lana, 5, and Sam, 3, stood in the doorway. Lana wore a yellow summer dress with a light yellow raincoat. Her pink Barbie bag peeked behind her. Her brown hair was held up in pigtails, and curled down the sides of her face. Her big hazel eyes glistened.
Beside her, Sam stood shuffling his feet. He wore a gray, striped, short-sleeved shirt, and gray shorts. He gripped his raincoat in one hand. It looked like he dragged it up the driveway and the stairs to the door. His straight brown hair covered his forehead and stopped above his big green eyes. His cheeks were puffed and blushed. He, too, carried a bag.
“Hi! Come in.” I smiled.
Lana stepped through first and surprised me with a hug. Sam threw his arms around us.
“How are you guys?” I said.
“Fffffine. Sank you,” Sam said.
I helped them take off their shoes. They handed me their coats to hang.
I took their hands and led them to the basement. I turned the TV on and changed the channel to Teletoon.
“Yay...Elmo’s World!” Sam said and slumped on the couch. Lana sat next to him.
Cups of orange juice and water, and bowls of chips and popcorn filled the coffee table in front of them.
“Nooo!” Sam screams a couple minutes later. Lana had changed the channel. Sam stood, placed his hands on his hips, huffed and puffed, then spotted an X-Box controller, and picked it up.
“I wanna play this,” he said.
“How about coloring? Huh? Coloring is fun,” I said.
He slammed the controller down and walked over. I gave him a page to color and placed a box full of crayons and markers beside him.
Lana got on her feet, lost her balance, and bumped on the coffee table. The table shook and the drinks spilled.
“Oops...sorry,” she said and walked towards my 1994 Casio keyboard.
She turned it on, increased the volume, and pressed the DEMO key. Music blared out. She sang along and walked to where Sam sat.
“I wanna color too,” she said.
As Lana sat to color, Sam got up, grabbed the popcorn bowl and walked around the place while munching. Popcorn trailed behind him.
“Scooby dooby do, where are you...” he sang.
Lana put down her crayon and picked up the book I had placed for Reading Time. She flipped to the back and said, “I wanna do this.” She pointed to a page with block letters.
“Well, for that one, you have to cut the letters out and glue them to make words.”
“Ya, I know.”
I photocopied the page, grabbed a bunch of blank paper, scissors, and liquid glue. I cut. She glued.
“I’m goin’ to the bathroom,” Sam said.
“OK,” I told him while cutting around the letter H.
Lana fidgeted and grabbed the letters from me before gluing the ones she already had. Her hands flew everywhere. The glue bottle toppled over. Glue smeared over everything.
“At least the letters are glued down, right?” I said.
“Oops...sorry,” she said.
“That’s alright. Let’s clean up.” I took a deep breath. Then Sam tugged my shirt.
“I love you,” he said.
“Awww...I love you too.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?”
“I don’t know...But I didn’t do it.”
He grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom. It was flooded. The sink overflowed and water ran down to the floor. A bar of soap floated in the toilet. Kleenex covered the counter and the floor. My head throbbed.
I cleaned up, took the kids upstairs, and helped them put on their shoes and coats. The doorbell rang at exactly 2pm. I opened the door and their dad stood in front of us. Lana and Sam ran and hugged their dad.
“So how were they today?” he asked.
“Wonderful!”
I needed Tylenol.
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