Average: An Ode to My Dad

He didn't even say anything. He just pushed the bathroom door half closed and flushed the yellow flabby skin of his face with palm-sized doses of fresh water from under the faucet. We were too fast to pay attention. The fries were almost done and the hamburger meat was slumping against the side of my plate. Too much were the mundane chitchats rushing through the last chunk of the night. Meanwhile, Dad's hands kept on applying the cold to his rough jaw up to his wrinkled hilly forehead. Then, he went out. Not a word and walked down the corridor through the spaces we managed to separate ourselves with. He reeled to the living room and to the balcony ahead were he settled on the yellow plastic seat. Dad was in search for the load of air he felt his chest seemed to have lost. His mouth was overflowing with the ants nibbling on his lips and the space a bit afar. It wasn't until he yelled for some alcohol to whiff that we fell back to his circle. We rushed to the emergency room tonight, and all was fine.
It all happened too fast. Now as I am pressing against the tabs of the keyboard, I recap the thoughts that have flooded my mindset ever since we returned home from the overwhelming smell of disease and trivially formal medical bureaucracy.The first thing that whipped my thoughts was the constant times we blamed Dad for us being plain average. Just average.
It is quite true. Every time we read about a five-year old prodigy taming the black and white slaves of his piano, an acrobat that has been practicing since she was 3 or a genius that mastered 5 different languages by the age of 12, I blamed Dad. He never enrolled his kids in any space where they can unleash the powers within. I think I would have been easily capable of juggling several languages, paint and generate music from the heart of the most obedient instruments. Really, I would've. And more. So, I kept blaming him. And every time I did, it felt right. It was his choice for us.
I was never as sure to have stood up to what was obvious to me; I could have been better. Elite! The idea was so pervasive in my conscious until a few hours ago where it all became clear. Maybe it was my adrenaline outburst forcing me to think. Maybe.
Growing up, my Dad was the youngest of 7. His mother was as ignorant as his father was financially constrained; his work shifted often between a doorman at certain points and a shoemaker at others. He discovered that his mother was not capable of reading when she held the book upside down while pretending to test his recitation at an early age. By mistake. He never cared, or so he managed to pretend, that his teacher hit him because he was "unrealistically descriptive" of his residence; his teacher pulled his dreams back to class: " Do not lie! Your house is a grave."
His dad was not home by each night. Or day. Or days. He lost his mom by the age of 14 and went from Mashghara to Zahle' in West Bekaa of Lebanon to continue pursue his studies. He then moved to Beirut where life was no less easier. He worked endlessly to pull himself from his past. All he wanted to be was like everyone else. All he wanted to be was average. He wanted the house he once falsely described, the bike he never had and the family he always dreamed of endorsing.
On every occasion, he flips the page back to the sugar sandwich his mom treated him with and the bike she promised to get him. And he cries.
Just as it passed across my mind, the idea of me losing him was painfully liberating. These words can not be any more sincere. So, thank you Dad. Thank you for being average and sharing your success with me. Average is where I will always want to be.