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I was at an extended family gathering for the Eid al-Adha holiday today. At these gatherings, the older generation in this family tends to not speak great English, so they normally speak among themselves in Arabic, while the younger generation speaks English, with some periods where we all speak together and my husband translates.

The center of this gathering was a newborn baby. My husband’s cousin had a child, and he was so cute and we took turns holding him and playing with him.

The oldest uncle is a retired doctor and although he normally speaks in Arabic among his peers, he actually speaks fluent English as well when there is context for it, since he used to live and work abroad. But he rarely speaks at these gatherings, in either Arabic or English. It’s a running joke that he is grumpy and rarely has much to say, and just kind of zones out at these things. Sometimes when people ask him what he is thinking, he makes a dry concise joke or a funny brief criticism of someone with like a stone cold expression. So usually at least once someone asks him, just to see what kind of grumpy thing he will say in response, since you never know what it’ll be but it’s never boring.

When the family was figuring out which coast town we should take a vacation to in a couple weeks, the uncle was quiet and eventually someone asked him what his choice is, and he sarcastically said “El Arish” which is the Egyptian coast town right near Gaza, to be a buzzkill. The joke being that it’s an obviously bad choice for a vacation.

A while later when people were talking about movies, he was again doing his zoned out expression, so my husband and cousin were whispering to me to ask him what he’s thinking about this time. I was hesitant but they were like, “do it, it’ll be great.”

So I asked what he’s thinking about. With his perfect English, he’s like, “You and Mohamed should have a child by the time you visit us next year. You’re getting old.”

Everyone was like, “…oh shit” since they thought he would say a bad movie or tell me I watch too many movies or something. One cousin was like, “uncle, they will when and if they are ready!”

But the uncle continued. “You two think you are busy now, but it only gets worse from here. The older you get the harder it will be, and you’re already getting old. Both of you are too smart and overthinking it, waiting for a perfect moment that will never come. If you two wait too long, you might not be able to do it, or there’s a higher chance the child will have health problems. Just do it now, while you are still in your mid-thirties, don’t let yourself get any older. And if you don’t do it, naught but regret and darkness awaits.”

So everyone was facepalming, since this was not the direction they were expecting. I was like, “thank you for the blunt advice, we will consider it! 😅”

One aunt who doesn’t speak English asked what he said, so one cousin said, “He called her a hag, basically.”