Letters to Gibran

Chapter 3

It was a Wednesday which meant family barbecue was on tonight. It was also the day I didn't have university, where I could catch up on reading, writing some cheesy poetry and watching romcoms. Wednesday was really the perfect day of the week. The only issue was that family barbecue night was at our house tonight. In our family, we've had the unbreakable tradition of rotating barbecue night within the seven households of my father's family. My dad has six siblings. My uncle Joe was the eldest of the family, with his wife Sandy and their three children. Tayta and Gido lived with them in their granny flat. I always assumed that with him being the eldest of the family he had felt obligated to take them in since they were getting older in age.

My grandparents were the backbone of our family. I had always been jealous of how they fell in love. If I was to ever fall in love, I wanted a story as intimate as theirs. One that left people wishing their story could be passed down with the same emotions being emitted like theirs. Gido Ghadi told us the first time he met Tayta Layale, he knew that he was going to marry her. He was working at the port in Byblos and Tayta was the checkout girl of the fruit store nearby when he walked past and was left gobsmacked. He said he will never forget what she was wearing that day. A white buttoned blouse tucked in a sky blue skirt that reached her knees and bright orange wedges to go with it. After seeing her there, he came to that fruit shop everyday until she agreed to go on a date with him. She'd almost said no because her parents wanted her with a boy from their village. Tayta Layale says it was the eyes that forced her to say yes to a date. My Gido carried the blue eye gene in our family. Somehow that gene skipped my family, but I wasn't complaining because the big nose gene had missed our family too.

Aunty Lamia was the next one in our family. She met her husband, Youssef in Lebanon and together they had five children. Uncle Sam followed with his three children. He was the divorcee of the family but no one ever asked what happened to his failed marriage. Gido said they were butting heads and butting heads could never get along but nobody ever knew the truth unless they witnessed it.

My Dad came after with his Egyptian wife, who happened to be the only non-Lebanese in our family and their four children. My brother, Sid was the eldest of my family and happily married to his wife Lisa at twenty-eight. Gabriel was the next in line, followed by my sister Chrystelle and then me. The youngest of our family or as my father would like to call me, the babitah of our family.

Aunty Farouz was my favourite of Dad's six siblings. Her relationship with her husband, Louis was one that I admired. It reminded me of the relationship my parents had. It wasn't just loving but it was equal. They always came to an agreement. It was never oh he's the man so he has to have the final say. It was a quality that I wanted in my future relationships. Aunty Farouz had four children like my parents. None of them were the same age as me but I sure could get along with them compared to Aunty Lamia's kids.

Aunty Lamia has a daughter, Rebecca who is the same age as me, born one week before I was, in the same hospital as me. Now you would assume that based on these reasons we would have a close relationship.

Wrong!

Rebecca and I did not get along whatsoever. Our relationship was non-existent. There was nothing to talk about. We had completely different interests, yet I found myself in the same predicament with her. Rebecca has always been in competition with me before I can even remember even though she's denied it countless times. Back in year three, my mum decided to snip my hair because it had surpassed the length of my lower back. A week later, Rebecca made her mum take her to the same hairdresser for the same shoulder length hair cut as mine. For my sweet sixteenth, my mum threw me an Arabian nights themed birthday. She even managed to decorate our whole backyard with ottomans and hanging lamps. Not to my surprise, the following year for Rebecca's 17th, her mum threw her an Arabian nights theme with exactly the same design and decorations as mine. Not to mention the cake was identical to mine. I could keep going on with the list of parallel moments Rebecca and I have shared over the years but that list was way too long. This competition that she had in for me was the reason I had waited to tell my family that I had made it into law. I made sure she was already enrolled into her psychology course before I broke the news to my family about my career choice.