Thanksgiving Day Surprise
Tuesdays are always busy. In addition to the regular listing appointments and client follow-up, it’s caravan day. Add Thanksgiving, and you have a recipe for a packed schedule. To top it off, I lost my wallet. What’s worse: not having your wallet or losing your mobile phone? Add a comment to this post, and let me know what you think.
I still have some Thanksgiving shopping, so I’ll have to figure out what to do. This year, I’m having 20 people over for dinner, and I've decided to prepare the entire meal. Despite my lost wallet, it’s one of my favorite holidays of the year. As I describe in my book, this wasn’t always the case.
Thanksgiving day, 1954, marked one of the most significant events of my life. My parents and I were on our way to dinner at the home of my father’s business partner. I recall sitting in the back seat surrounded by other cars—all of us driving to our Thanksgiving Day destinations. Suddenly, our new Buick stopped. In the middle of traffic, my father abruptly grabbed the gearshift and shifted it into Park. Without saying a word, he closed his eyes.
My mother shook his shoulder back and forth. His head, however, remained planted on the headrest. Traffic signals changed from red to green. Horns blared behind us. Surrounding cars moved ahead and swerved around ours. But my father’s unconscious state remained the same. My mother let out a scream—a visceral cry that I’ll never forget.
To this day, I don’t know how they found out, but eventually I heard the shrill of a siren. I was only six years old, so I did my best to explain what happened to the paramedics. They carried my father out of the car, and we took a seat in the ambulance.
Once we arrived at the hospital, I sat in the waiting room while my mother remained with my father. Eventually, she emerged from the hospital room and sat next to me. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her hands were full. In her fists, she clutched a watch, a wedding band, and a wallet. My father had a fatal coronary heart attack, and these were the three possessions that he carried with him.
From that Thanksgiving forward, we stopped celebrating the holiday. Year after year, I remember sitting in class and listening to my teachers talk about Thanksgiving. “It’s a time to give thanks,” they would say. Meanwhile, it was a day about which we never spoke at home and an event that brought about one of the biggest changes of my life.
It wasn’t until I married Saeed that Thanksgiving was restored to its celebratory status. We were looking to live in Beverly Hills at the time, and I was pregnant with our second son, Michael. It was a big move—from our simple residence to our estate in the best part of Beverly Hills. We finally found a home that we loved.
Unfortunately, competition was fierce, and our chances for an accepted offer were slim. The other buyers were more qualified and had better financial resources than we did. But through Saeed’s determination and negotiation skills, he convinced the owner to sell us the house.
Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching, and Saeed explained to the owner the circumstances behind my father’s death. My husband requested to buy the house on Thanksgiving Day. He told the seller that he never wanted his wife to be sad on this day again. The deal was sealed on Thanksgiving; escrow closed two months later, and we moved into our beautiful home on the first day of spring.
Yes, losing my wallet on Tuesday was a huge inconvenience, but my life experiences always put things into perspective. I’m surrounded by family: my children and their significant others. I’m so thrilled that I’ve been blessed with two amazing grandchildren. Business is good: In this day everyone is crying doom and gloom about real estate, but clients are still buying and selling in the West side.
Now, if any of you have seen an abandoned wallet around Beverly Hills, let me know. And I promise, I'll mail you a free book! ♦Digg it ♦del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves
I still have some Thanksgiving shopping, so I’ll have to figure out what to do. This year, I’m having 20 people over for dinner, and I've decided to prepare the entire meal. Despite my lost wallet, it’s one of my favorite holidays of the year. As I describe in my book, this wasn’t always the case.
Thanksgiving day, 1954, marked one of the most significant events of my life. My parents and I were on our way to dinner at the home of my father’s business partner. I recall sitting in the back seat surrounded by other cars—all of us driving to our Thanksgiving Day destinations. Suddenly, our new Buick stopped. In the middle of traffic, my father abruptly grabbed the gearshift and shifted it into Park. Without saying a word, he closed his eyes.
My mother shook his shoulder back and forth. His head, however, remained planted on the headrest. Traffic signals changed from red to green. Horns blared behind us. Surrounding cars moved ahead and swerved around ours. But my father’s unconscious state remained the same. My mother let out a scream—a visceral cry that I’ll never forget.
To this day, I don’t know how they found out, but eventually I heard the shrill of a siren. I was only six years old, so I did my best to explain what happened to the paramedics. They carried my father out of the car, and we took a seat in the ambulance.
Once we arrived at the hospital, I sat in the waiting room while my mother remained with my father. Eventually, she emerged from the hospital room and sat next to me. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her hands were full. In her fists, she clutched a watch, a wedding band, and a wallet. My father had a fatal coronary heart attack, and these were the three possessions that he carried with him.
From that Thanksgiving forward, we stopped celebrating the holiday. Year after year, I remember sitting in class and listening to my teachers talk about Thanksgiving. “It’s a time to give thanks,” they would say. Meanwhile, it was a day about which we never spoke at home and an event that brought about one of the biggest changes of my life.
It wasn’t until I married Saeed that Thanksgiving was restored to its celebratory status. We were looking to live in Beverly Hills at the time, and I was pregnant with our second son, Michael. It was a big move—from our simple residence to our estate in the best part of Beverly Hills. We finally found a home that we loved.
Unfortunately, competition was fierce, and our chances for an accepted offer were slim. The other buyers were more qualified and had better financial resources than we did. But through Saeed’s determination and negotiation skills, he convinced the owner to sell us the house.
Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching, and Saeed explained to the owner the circumstances behind my father’s death. My husband requested to buy the house on Thanksgiving Day. He told the seller that he never wanted his wife to be sad on this day again. The deal was sealed on Thanksgiving; escrow closed two months later, and we moved into our beautiful home on the first day of spring.
Yes, losing my wallet on Tuesday was a huge inconvenience, but my life experiences always put things into perspective. I’m surrounded by family: my children and their significant others. I’m so thrilled that I’ve been blessed with two amazing grandchildren. Business is good: In this day everyone is crying doom and gloom about real estate, but clients are still buying and selling in the West side.
Now, if any of you have seen an abandoned wallet around Beverly Hills, let me know. And I promise, I'll mail you a free book! ♦Digg it ♦del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves
posted by Myra Nourmand at
12:29 PM
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