The Monzer Hammer (where there are no second chances)

Let me tell you about that amazing and heart-warming moment between my baba and I when he, well intentioned, took my crushed heart and hammered it like he was on some competitive reality show titled Who Will Build The Out-House FIRST! (Correct punctuation there.)

A few years back and like a ridiculous little monkey who couldn’t stop crying, I was seated at his side, sobbing something fierce. I had allowed my chest to be ripped open, left my insides as a playground to someone I trusted and loved, and they — not being cautious — had left their fingerprints on every part of me but nothing more.

My baba was looking at his only daughter, broken winged, and did the only thing he knew how — triage by stating the following (seared into my mind):

It’s over!
DONE!
FINISHED!
FINI!
FIN!
FINITO!
!خلاص
完成了!
KAPUT!
DONE!
DONE!
DONE!
OVER!
FINISHED!”

(pause)

“IT’S OVER!
DONE!
FINISHED!
BASS!
BASTA!
CIAO!
OLE!
OUT!
DONE!
OVER!
GONE!
NO MORE!
EVER!
AND FOREVER OVER!”

He was also making chopping motions both horizontal and vertical with his hands. In hindsight, I am surprised he didn’t take flight with his angry waving. I understood instantly that this was maybe what a lion looks like when protecting their cub — and as all sane parents, my father is some kind of force with which to be reckoned when it comes to me.

I sat, mouth hung open, saucer-eyed, with tears frozen, calculating were I to lunge at him what are my chances of success? He is a large man, and so I decided better to chill my ass, and instead asked:
“When did you become kajill-ingular?”

He laughed, and I did too.

His response has become known as “The Monzer Hammer” amidst my girlfriends. When one of us needs a solid ass kicking, the other pulls out The Monzer Hammer, runs to Google Translate, and gives’er.

Tonight, I pulled out The Monzer Hammer, wrapped it in velvet, and did a little work of my own. Needed not for me, but for another so that he — at his request — may now move forward.

We humans are an amazing, complicated, heart-breaking, and beautiful creation. Our ability to be vulnerable is as devastating when reflected in hope as it is in endings.