A normal month

19 October 2004, 4 Ramadan 1425

I realised last night how good Ramadan is for my relationship with my kids. I don’t know why that is the case, why we have a nicer relationship in Ramadan than the rest of the year (I’m not, of course, saying that we have a bad relationship outside of Ramadan).

Last night the three of us were sitting together on my bed, I preparing for my tafseer programme, Minhaj and Shir’a working on their school speeches: Minhaj on a speech on the current situation in Palestine and Shir’a on why Morocco was his most aspired-to travel destination.

Then Shir’a read his speech to me, asked me to help him with some suggestions, correct it, etc. Then Minhaj did the same – which is very unusual.

But it’s not just that. It’s the banter, the messing around, the teasing, the insulting, even the fighting between us that’s so great. (Maybe I should keep fighting with them after Ramadan?) Oh, and the preparing iftaar together, of course. I think we also have a desire to just work with each other and help each other out in Ramadan (I don’t know; I’m just grasping at straws here).

Yesterday we accepted an invitation to have iftaar at a friend’s place. It wasn’t the same somehow. Maybe I’m becoming anti-social like the kids. Or maybe all of what is in this post is related to what a friend wrote to me after she read my last post to the journal.

‘BTW,’ she said, ‘I can totally understand why Minhaj and Shir’a would prefer to eat at home. Especially as their dad travels and works a lot. Normality and familiarity can be a bit of a treat sometimes I guess.’

Maybe that’s all this is: a treat resulting from normality and familiarity. And perhaps that’s why it needs to end at the end of Ramadan. Perhaps my kids think like their mother and I do: normality is boring. It’s only tolerable in small doses.

And maybe Ramadan is just the right-sized dose.