The ‘J’num’ Givers

Though this blog welcomes all who deliberately visit or just happen to stumble upon it, it was specifically created to connect three generation of women – mothers, daughters,  grandmothers and grand daughters – ‘j’num’ givers all.

The female of every species is a”j’num’ giver – gives birth, to its own species. From mothers to daughters; to grandmothers and grand daughters, we are ’j'num’ givers.

Since the beginning of time and in every culture, the word Mother is held scared, sacrosanct.  What binds the three generation of women like no other, is this life giving force called Motherhood - ’j'num’ givers.

I hope, as mothers, grandmothers; daughters and grand daughters, you will come and come often to add your own unique voice, to share, support and encourage a mother, a grandmother. a daughter or grand daughter. I hope you will feel free to contribute, share and participate. Add your own personal insights and advice to women like yourself.

I am a devoted daughter, a loving mother and insanely proud grandmother. I am sure you can easily relate to my sentiments and if you don’t that too I understand. After all we are the ‘j’num’  givers, it falls to us to love, listen and support.

“Of all nature’s gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?” Cicero

My Story

I am an immigrant from two continents – Asia and Europe. My husband and Icame to the US in the mid 70s with four kids. Three sons and one daughter.The oldest ten the youngest under two. We will celebrate 34 years as US citizens this year.

We came to the US because of the 1974 Amendment to the Pakistan Constitution. It declared people like me who belonged to a particular sect of Islam, as non-Muslims. The result was of unbridled mayhem, all across the country, against a group of people with a different point of view. 

My husband, a lawyer by profession, knew what this Amendment to the Constitution meant for the future of our four children. His law office was being deluged with cases  filed by parents of mostly male students being denied admission to colleges and universities despite high academic scores. It was becoming very clear the future of our own three boys was in doubt and our life style in jeopardy.

He had to make a difficult decision. It was especially difficult since he had just returned home from the UK after completing his studies to contribute to the civil society and resume his law practice with his father, also an attorney and a highly admired and respected retired judge who had kept his law practice going while he was studying abroad.

To leave his practice now and everything he had known, privilege of family, friends and a thieving practice was unthinkable. It was hardest on his father who had great expectations of the role his son would play in the development of the country. He had no doubt in his mind that his son had a judgeship in his future.

But after much thinking and soul searching my husband decide he could no longer live in a country where freedom of religion and freedom of speech, the two most precious tenants of his faith would be denied him and his children.

To uproot his family and give up everything he had ever known, on nothing more than a leap of faith and pure guts, took some doing. He decided to take an enormous gamble on making a new life in the United States. Looking back, I don’t know how we did it, with four kids ten and under, no job no prospects.

It took some courage to say the least.  But once the decision was made there was no looking back. That was 34 years ago. He has never looked back or ever returned to a country that so unceremoniously declared him a non citizen and stripped him of his basic God given freedoms.

Immigration to the US was not such a formidable hurdle as it is today. 9/11 changed all that for countless émigré since that fateful day. However, our immigration papers did present a problem for the American Embassy.

As a family, we came under different immigration quotas. My husband and I were born in India, my three sons were born in London and my one and only daughter in Pakistan. However, remarkably the problem was handled by the American consulate very swiftly. We were issued visas and were on our way, as a family, to the United States within ten days of application.

Like I said, I have lived in many countries on two continents. My father moved our family of eight to England at about the same age as my husband – forty - did to the US. We were only a few years older in 1953 than my children were in 1976 when we moved them to the US.

My father had confronted an earlier version of the same Amendment to the Constitution with the same devastating results on countless families as we did a few decades later. For me it was déjà vu all over again. Just as I was beginning to reacquaint myself with my country, my culture and heritage after – and loving every minute of it –  years of absence, I was once again forced to leave because of circumstances beyond my control.

The years have flown by and living in the US has been an experience unlike any other. There is no place on earth that comes even remotely close. What I have learnt about my adopted country is that it is a country all on to itself. There is no other example in the annuals of human history of such sublime experiment that is AMERICA. In my opinion it would be too simplistic, too prosaic to call it a country. That would not do justice to Lady Liberty.

In my view, it is more than a mere country. It is more, an idea, a sublimb experiment, unlike any ever attempted in the history of man. It is a promise, a goal, an idea to live up to. It is a faith and a belief in the innate oneness of humanity. It is my belief and my hope that we each cherish, protect, and nurture it for future generations. At least this is how I see the miracle that is America.

My children are now grown and very successful adults in their own right. My 10 year old is now a physician of some renown, my second son is a very successful entrepreneur giving back to his community.

My one and only daughter – my role model, one I aspire to be when I grow up – is a corporate attorney and my baby, the almost two year old is now a Civil Rights Attorney, and Executive Director of BORDC – The Bill of Rights Defense Committee. To say I am thankful, proud and grateful is an under statement. The truth is I am blessed and privileged to call the United States my home.

What were the odds of our succeeding so spectacularly? A young couple who gave up family, friends and profession and every advantage for a principal, that of freedom of speech and religion and came to a country where we had not only freedom of speech and religion but the promise of equal opportunity, the rest was up to us.

We had an equal chance to succeed or to fail. With the grace of God, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams in no small measure to our unwavering faith in this country and to our own hard work and above all, the equal opportunities provided to every émigré and every citizen alike.

This is not to say it was easy. We had arrived with just $10.000 in cash. We struggled or at least my husband struggled while I was a stay at home mom doing the best I could with what little we had.

My husband would have it no other way even though we could have done with two incomes. I concentrated on my children and spent every waking hour in furthering their education with the result that they ahead of their peers and graduated from high schools almost two years earlier than most kids graduate.

My husband has never worked for anyone but himself. The first 17 years were especially hard since he could not enter the profession he loved and was trained for because he was a foreign graduate with law degrees from both Pakistan Law School and London University.

But he did not let that stop him. He studied for a Real Estate Broker’s license and Securities exam and succeeded spectacularly, till we lost it all when Raeganomics became the mantra of the new administration sending many in the real estate business into a nose dive. Still we were better off than many in similar situation.

But by now my kids who were excellent students, were putting themselves through school, winning scholarships, like the ROTC and working hard at two and three jobs at a time. They graduated from great universities, Washington University, St Louis University, University of Chicago and Stanford Law School.

By working so hard, they reduced the pressure on us just when we were going through some very hard times. They made their own way without once complaining or feeling sorry for themselves.  Today they are truly self-made and are are in the one percent of high income earners in this country.

Our contribution to their success was very basic -an eagle eye on their education, unconditional love; support and encouragement. We were always very personally involved in every stage of their early education. All three of my boys became Eagle Scouts. They were the first Eagle Scouts in our small town in the Mid West. As we say in Arabic, Allumdolilah – all thanks and praise belong to Almighty God.

Mean while after 17 years my husband re-entered the profession and went back to practicing law – his first love – once again.

Except for one, all my children are now married with children of their own – full-blooded Americans all. I often recall what Tom Dowling who when handing us the emigration papers, so long ago, had said after welcoming us to the US.

 It was people like us, he said, who made our country great. Leaving everything dear and familiar and starting a new life with faith and courage infusing new blood and new ideas. Wherever you are Tom, I hope you will agree we did our part and tried to live up to the ideal, which is America, and tried to give meaning to your never forgotten phrase “Its people like…”

Last November, un be known to me my daughter booked my first ever flight to Lahore since I left the country 34 years ago so I could attend the wedding of my sister-in-law’s daughter. As for my husband, he has never been back and has no desire to return.

It was an unbelievable moment for me when the plane touched down on the soil of Pakistan. I was almost driven to kneel right there and then and like the famous shots of the Pope kiss the ground. But I also recalled with sadness and not a little bitterness that it was this country that deemed me to be a second class citizen. 

I found myself happy to return but happier still that I was free to return to the country that had given me refuge. I felt a surge of pride and gratitude to be an American. I Love Lahore with a passion and returning after 34 years was a very emotional experience. I have deep roots in this ancient, historic and beautiful city. Both my parents were from Lahore – nwo buried in London. I felt totally at home as if I had never left.

Though things had changed out of all recognition, I loved every moment I spent there with friends and relatives. Ivisited my old haunts, our neighborhood; our family home, now unrecognizable with all the additions and substractions by new owners.

I visited the schools I , my siblings and even my children had attende. The shops and bazars we shopped at growing up. Would you believe Zahid’s, the photographers, were still there in the same sopt they had always been. I have pictures of my parents and us children taken so long ago by Zahids.

My mind and emotions were on over drive. I wanted to sear the images in my mind and carry them back with me for Lord knows when, if ever, I would ever return again and also to share these memories with my husband. I took pictures of the High Cout where my husband spent most of his waking hours. But he just passed a cursorey look at them. I was shocked at how tepid his response was. I have every intention of  returning, with or without my husband, now that the ice is broken.

And I will work on my husband – who never looks back and has the tendency to have no regrets once the decision is made. – take the trip with me and to put the past behind him. Every where I went in Lahore people would tell me, had my husband stayed he would have been a very successful and famous lawyer and even perhaps, a justice of the Supreme Court.  After all, at the tender age of 23 he had argued precedent setting cases in the same courts that his father’s colleagues presided and who saw in him an up and coming lawyer in the same tradition as his father.

Though I am sometimes given to  thoughts of what ifs… My husband on the other hand, is clear on the fateful decision he was forced to make so long ago. He just points to our kids and gives thanks. He is content. His decision was the right one, of that he has no doubt. Period. So what if his own potential was never fully tested or realized.

 The important thing he tells me is to always remember the Arabic prayer that implores God Almighty to make our children an improvement upon us and our children certainly are an important on us. The important thing is he has no regrets.

So this is my story in a nutshell. More importantly, my storey is now being written by a new generation and  by the grace of God I know their story will be written even better than mine.

And if you want to know more on how an immigrant mother with English not her first language managed to raise such successful kids and now working on her grand kids, then leave me your name and email in the box box provided. I will be sure to send you more information on how you could do the same, no matter whether you are an immigrant mom; new mom or a  working mom struggling to raise your kids and trying to secure their future.

Words Like Raindrops Nourish The Soul!

As always my very best. Till the next time!

Attay

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