Hardy

I was a little older than 5 years old. We were living in Hamedan, a province in the middle of Iran, the house of Avecina, the longest cave in the world, and nice highland weather. I was a confident, energetic, no none sense type of kid. Not much girly, very fair (in terms of justice not skin tone), and curious.

I learned skiing there, skipping school as recommended by my father on a Tuesday because there was fresh snow. I also learned about Darwin's theory of evolution, through the visuals on the back of a book that my father casually showed me and my sister as something obvious and funny that we were monkeys in the past. It did make total sense.

I also saw tanks for the first and last time, it was 1978 and the year of the revolution. There were curfews, sounds of shootings, and demonstrations. I learned about hunger strike and making dolls out of used detergent bottles (mother's favourite craft time) and walked in a lot of snow in Hamedan.

We had a neighbor with a daughter younger than me and my sister. The mother had married young instead of going to college. She was smart and ambitious but without a platform to use her potentials. She spoiled the little girl whose room was filled with new toys. She would put real pieces of chocolate in the girl's hot coco drinks and the little girl didn't even enjoy hot coco that much, or so my sister and I thought, as we were licking the saliva off of our chins, since we were not offered that hot coco with real tablets of chocolate. The mother looked up to and seeked guidance from my mother who was older, had gone to college and graduate school, and was living her dream at home and at work.

We were at their home one day looking at the spoiled girl not really enjoying her hot coco -with real tablets of chocolate!- and whining and not enjoying her room full of toys, when I saw the most adorable little piece of toy that I had ever seen. It was a small 3 inches long figurine of Hardy, from Laurel and Hardy's comedy. It was made out of hard plastic and had vivid colors. It was the cutest thing anyone could have made. I had to have it.

Two days later and my mother, the quintessential democratic and equality rights feminist, approached me in a dark corner of the hall that went between our bedroom and theirs. She said, X (the mother of the spoiled kid) says that you have her daughter's Hardy figurine, is that true?
I was disappointed! I was so disappointed that an adult could not let a little girl have something that her daughter clearly didn't care about. I was disappointed that she told on me and behind my back and found her stingy, not generous, petty, and unfair to have taken away this ultimate joy from me!
We had the usual "now let's be civil and return the toy to whoever it belongs" moment and walked over and handed it in. I did not feel remorse or embarassement, just feeling sorry for her not being able to see me have it!

Years passed. The mother went to college and started working. She raised great independent and well educated daughters and always told us how my sister and I were their role models. It didn't move me much.

32 years later, on a snowy day in Chicago, where there are no tanks and curfews, and no father to take you away from work for the pure joy of being in fresh snow, I receive a little packet. It has a used cover that is stapled back together. It has the wrinkles of the touches of a little girl or a boy on its old plastic wrap and it comes from a seller in Argentina. My secret lover who has heard my story found Hardy from the other side of the world and got it for me on Ebay! Thank you! I love it! and I am happy for that lady and her daughters and their achievements.