My Little Helper

It has been snowing again on and off for the past 36 hours. I had to clear the driveway three times yesterday. As I looked at the snow covered landscape all around this morning, I remembered how much my daughter Sheela and later my son Sinan loved to play on the snow when they were children. They used to sled down the hill in our front yard, as I stood on the street making sure that there was no traffic as they came down on the street. Sometimes, they made a snowman. They always hoped that the snow fall would be heavy enough to cause school cancellation. We still have the little shovel that they used to clear the snow from the driveway and the porch steps. As I remember those days, the person I really miss at this time is my four year old grandson Kaya, my buddy, my little helper. If he was in this house now, he would have insisted on coming out to play on the snow and helping Dadu, as he calls me following Bengali tradition. Unfortunately, he now lives far away from snow, ever since my son-in-law Chris moved the family to Dhaka, Bangladesh, accepting a teaching position in the International School there in the fall of 2008. We get to see them only for a few weeks, when they return to spend their summer vacation in this country.

If Kaya was here, he would have picked up the little shovel and help me clear up the snow. He has always been very helpful. He used to sweep the floor with a broom and try to use the vacuum cleaner when he was two years old. He loved to cut the grass, walking alongside my lawn mower with his toy mower when he was two and a half years old in the summer of 2008.

During their visit here in the summer of 2009, Kaya was very active, helping AnneAnne (Turkish way of addressing maternal grandmother) water her flower plants, and helping uncle Sinan spread the compost on the new extension to AnneAnne’s vegetable garden that his dad built. Of course he was still helping me cut the grass. I was so impressed that I decided to put him to work on a regular basis. Since he woke up early every morning, I told him that it would be his job to pick up the newspaper from the driveway and bring it in. He accepted my offer enthusiastically. The first day, he ran down the porch steps, picked up the newspaper, and handed it back to me while I waited on the porch. On the third day, he still did the job, but did not seem too thrilled about it. On the fourth day, as I reminded him about his job, he did not move. Here is how the conversation went.

“Kaya, don’t you want to do your job?”

“No Dadu, I have too many jobs already”

“You don’t have any other jobs. What do you have?”

“Well, I have to brush my teeth everyday”

“What else?”

“I have to say please and thank you”

Suppressing my laughter, I realized that I was dealing with a quick thinking smart kid. I said, “I see. I guess I have to do it myself.” It was clear to me that next year I will have to think of a job for him that is not repetitious and boring. This kid is definitely not going to be happy with a desk job when he grows up.