Choices and fate

We sat round the teppanyaki table, three gentlemen and a woman. Two fathers whose wives and children were elsewhere, another whose wife was away and a couple who wanted options in life.

One father was there on his own, making a living while his wife was back in their homeland looking after three children.

The other father was waiting for his wife and kids to come back from their summer vacation.

The third man was lamenting in a humorous fashion, about missing his wife while she is away on a home visit, taking care of her father and helping to prepare for their neighbour’s up coming wedding celebration.

“Owh, we’re just big babies we husbands,” he said. “We just want to be pampered by our wives. I sometimes get sick in the middle of the night so she can just baby me. Somehow when she is not around, I function allright alone.”

One of the fathers answered, “Wait till you have children your their own. Your world changes,” he remarked off hand.

“Ah we tried. We tried twice and it is God’s will that we haven’t gotten children.”

Silence.

“So is it true they said, you have to inject the hormones and time your sex exactly right?” asked the lady.

“Yes it is.”

We were there united at the table by the fact that we are in this foreign land in search of a lifeline. A lifeline to provide our children with a better life, a lifeline to pay for mortgages we otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford and a lifeline to seek ourselves nearer to God.

But we couldn’t be more different. Different in our perspective about our separate lives and about the options for our lives and the choices we make for ourselves.

The father who left his three children behind with his wife wanted to be able to provide his children a life which otherwise they would not have been able to afford. His middle son has stopped going to school and his wife didn’t know how to deal with it. This youngest was rushed to the hospital recently because he fell off his bike. He was texted about it, but he felt powerless, not being there and not being able to do more.

The father whose children are away on their summer vacation cannot wait for their return. Although it was him who sent them away. Especially since people were being killed here.

The husband whose wife was away on vacation wanted to have his dreams fulfilled. To try and have children of their own, and where is a better place to ask from God himself, in from fo the Ka’abah.

And the couple, they are still indecisive. Wanting the freedom and the flexibility of TBK (time before kids) to explore the world and each other.

It is true then, that having children brings immense happiness, but with that also comes responsibility and decisions.

Having none, means you are looked upon by the people around you with oddity. It is incomprehensible to them that you don’t.

But what about the people who want them and try really hard to get them? To try again and again and again and to fail is something to be reckon with.

For some the decision is made for them. For others, they make their own decisions.

Its all about choices and fate.

In the end, we all just want to be happy and to make the best out of our lives.