Widad's Memoirs - Chapter 3

My grandmother from the Shamieh family, had three children, one son Elias, two daughters, Maria (my mother) and Scondra. My grandmother was a very Holy woman. She lost grandfather when she was 28. Her son Elias supported the family when he was just a teenager. He worked in a small food store. During this time everything was affordable, even the taxes. The homes in Ramallah were very close to each other, just walking distance apart so you could visit each other often. One time my mother, my sisters Leila and Lemia and I (I was eight, LEILA six, and Lemia four) were visiting my great uncle; the mayor Assad Saman. Lemia was a beautiful child, with blond curly hair. Some evil man saw her and said how cute she was, but that she should have been born a boy. He never said God bless her. He made that statement knowing our culture prefers boys, especially after my mother had three girls. Lemia was happy and healthy until that man gave her the evil eye! When we took her home, she had a high fever. The doctor said nothing was wrong with her, but she died the next day.  It was heartbreaking. The next day my mother took us to a man who knew about the evil eye and gave Leila and me crosses with blue beads to put under our clothing. 

At 12 years old, I needed my tonsils removed. I had a lot of sinus infections and my sister Leila had a lot of colds, so mother decided to have both of our tonsils removed. We went to a French hospital in Jerusalem; the doctor clipped my tonsils with pliers but it didn't hurt.  When the doctor starting on Leila, she took off kicking and screaming. The doctor told us not to bring her back. They kept giving me ice cream all night, and in morning, we went home.