My mother-in-law left this world and a huge
void in the lives of those she loved and who in turn loved her, at 09.15 on
Saturday 2 January, 2016. The previous
year her life had been slowly winding down but she kept us guessing
anyway. She had several periods where
she seemed so poorly that it looked as if she was on her way out and then,
several days later she was sitting up commenting and making remarks that made
the family laugh and feeling relieved that she was going to be around for a
while longer.
She didn’t have an easy life, far from
it. She never learnt to read or write,
lost one eye when she was very young, her parents divorced around the same time
and she never saw her mother again as she died not that long after, she buried
two husbands, several children, lived through the Second World War, the War of
Independence, the years of terrorism here in Algeria, several frightening
earthquakes and the big flood and landslide that roared near her home and
decimated so much of her area. She also
brought up 5 step-children and was cheated out of two inheritances, one from
her father and one from her first husband.
And for the 29 years I knew her, she was calm, contented with her lot,
never lost her sense of humour, loved her own home and was the center of every
family gathering.
When I met and married my husband I had
absolutely no idea of how things were done in Algeria, and how much the women,
especially the mother and the sisters, are involved in the choice of wives for
their sons and brothers. I cannot imagine
how she must have felt when my husband returned to tell her that he was getting
married…not only to a complete stranger…..but a foreign, non-Muslim one at that.
I might as well have been French for all she knew! When I first met her
two years later on my first visit to Algeria, not for even one minute did she
give me any inkling that I was not whom she would have chosen for a
daughter-in-law, but instead she and the family welcomed me and made me feel at
home and tried to accommodate me as much as they could. Many years later after we had moved here, at
an engagement party, the women were talking about how they had chosen their
daughters-in-law and she commented on how well she had chosen hers, when my
daughter piped up and reminded her that she hadn’t chosen me. She replied, that it was true….that she
thought she had lost her son, my husband, but….that I had brought him back.
Being a mother now and especially having a son of 23 years old which is about
the age her youngest left to travel to England for the first time, I cannot
imagine the number of sleepless nights she must have had. When my son wanted to travel to Bejajia which
is about 3 hours drive away to stay with friends, a few years ago, he was instructed to ring me when he got
there, every day he was away and before he left to drive back!
I could not communicate in any meaningful
way with my mother-in-law except with the help of a third person (despite the
fact that she proudly would tell everyone that we could communicate fine! So I must have obviously been nodding the
right nods in the right places!), but I didn’t need to understand Algerian
derja to feel the love she had for me, and which was reciprocated. Many times when we visited I would get the
children to ask her questions about her past, and they were so enthralled at
the stories of her life and a time long gone.
Once one of my husband’s nieces asked him how she lost her eye, he told
her to ask me……because I was the one who got all the information out of her!
Soon after we moved to Algeria, my husband
and his brother and wife and niece visited my mother-in-law and sister-in-law
one Friday. When my husband returned he
was laughing at something she had said - ‘I feel sorry for Evelyn’. When my husband asked her why on earth she
felt sorry for me, she answered ‘because she doesn’t know how to rule you’. After living here a while I had some inkling
of what she meant. Algerian women may
seem docile and unquestionably obedient to outsiders, but everyone knows they
really rule the roost….by all means necessary at their disposal! My mother-in-law never saw me getting angry
with my husband, losing my temper, and so just assumed I was a doormat, one for
whom she felt very sorry! She did try
her best to urge me to be a bit more assertive, but I’m afraid these efforts
went right over my head, not necessarily because I’m thick (there are those
unkind enough who might dare to differ!), but because I didn’t need to learn
‘to control’ him….we had learnt to rub along together fine over the years, and
neither of us was one for airing our dirty laundry in public. I remember one time when my husband and I
were visiting and the adhan for the dhuhr prayer called out. She turned to me and said ‘you’re going to
lose him to Younes again’. Younes was
the Imam in the mosque across the road, with whom my husband had many a long chat
after the prayers were finished. It
never bothered me as often these chats were based around the religion of Islam
and made my husband happy, unlike other conversations that brought him
down. My husband and sister-in-law
started laughing together and then my husband explained to me that my
mother-in-law was trying to get me to do what she normally did – shout at him
and tell him to not delay after the prayer chatting and to come straight back! I think after a time she realised I had a
backbone and could manage fine on my own, but it was always nice to know that
she ‘had been looking out for me’!
Before we bought our home here in Algeria, we
bought a car first in order to get around, and when my husband drove it to show
his Mum, she admired it and then said ‘but Evelyn won’t be happy until she’s in
her own home’. The first time I ever
drove here in Algeria was when my husband had to go to England for 3 months,
and I can still remember how nervous I was about driving the children all the
way into to visit their grandmother and aunt for the first time ever. I was amazed at the reaction of my
mother-in-law - she just kept on kissing
me and saying ‘you don’t need him (my husband) now, he can stay over there, as
you can manage fine without him’!!!! Another time I climbed the 156 or so steps up
from one part of Bab El Oued to the area in which she lived, and when I came in
the door I was red faced, breathless and had the shakes for a glass of
water. My two sisters-in-law were
laughing at me but my mother-in-law told them off saying that I wasn’t used to
those steps…….nothing at all about her two daughters who not only came up those
stairs on a regular basis and who were older than me but often carried kilos of
semolina!
Another time she and my two sisters-in-law
and my husband’s sister-in-law came earlier than expected for coffee so I made
a quick impromptu lunch which included pasta salad. One sister-in-law was not too keen on cold
pasta while the other was ok as she had had it in England but as neither of
them were great pasta eaters anyway, they only had a little and ate the rest of
the food instead. My mother-in-law,
though was another story – she told me that she would eat pasta hot or cold,
with sauce or without sauce….any way it came!
And then she went into raptures later over my doughnuts, she just made
me feel such a success!
She never received anything from her
rightful inheritance from her first husband and her stepmother ensured that she
received nothing of what was rightfully hers from her father’s estate. She remained in contact with her half-sister
and half- brother, and her step daughters from her first marriage, and she treated
her step sons as her own sons throughout her life. Once her half-brother said that he remembered
that time when she came with her little girl looking for somewhere to stay and
how helpless he felt when his mother sent her away as he, himself, was still
young. He also commented on how part of
the land he owned belonged to her. For
her part, the past was gone, she had what she needed and she was content with
it and she didn’t want anything from anyone, but just good relations with
everyone.
I brought my two sons and my daughter to
see her and she was now too weak to sit up so she just lay on the divan which
they call a ‘canopy’ here – she lay with her back to us so I thought she was
sleeping and left her alone until I was leaving when I leaned over her and told
her who I was and that I was going, she picked up her head and turned to give
me a kiss and I knew she was aware that it was me. That was the last time I saw her as she
passed away 6 days later. I thank Allah
for blessing me with such a wonderful, kind and supportive mother-in-law who,
in so many ways, has been an inspiration to me.
It is a testament to her that her
grandchildren from her step sons (her step sons had since all passed away) and
her step daughters (only one of whom is alive and is very unwell) as well as
her own grandchildren and great grandchildren all attended her funeral along
with her children, her daughters and son in law, her sister, her nieces and
nephews and neighbours, past and present.
As my daughter, Sarah, summed her up so
beautifully and so aptly ‘And how few of us on our deathbed can be as certain
as she was that everyone loved her and would pray for her, because she never
wronged anyone, and she always forgave those who wronged her.’
May Allah have mercy on the beautiful soul
of ‘Mani’, forgive her all her sins, make her grave wide and spacious and grant
her Firdous. Ameen.
