Even grief can be mansplained…
TLDR: I meet an American middle aged man this summer in Turkey who obnoxiously mansplains grief to me (this story is 6 months old, I have some material saved up).
After my father passed this summer, we went to Istanbul, aka my favorite place in this whole world. We stayed in this tiny hotel, which was clean, modest and had the nicest staff. I had developed a very strange friendship with Mustapha, jack and master of all trades, notably, concierge, barman and storyteller. The was a huge language barrier which meant that our conversations were limited to him saying “Salmaaaaaa !!!!” and me “Mustaphaaaaaa!!!” And then he would show me photos of his children. He would tell me anecdotes in Turkish which I believe involved getting drunk, dancing and something to do with electronic vehicles.
He took it upon himself to teach me Turkish and his pedagogical methods were interesting: he would line up bottles of Tuborg, Turkish beer, when my husband and I would have a drink on the rooftop. Tuborg beers had caps of different colors so he would teach me different colors in Turkish. Often there would be overlaps with Egyptian Arabic, notably the color pink. I would pronounce it “Bamba” and Mustapha would look at me like an exasperated ottoman pasha and say “Yok bamba ! PEMBA ! PEMBA”, probably appalled by my Egyptian pronunciation.
In the morning we would chat with other guests and it was nice, many people had come for hair transplants and we would discuss their procedure and their stay.
One day we met a middle aged American man. He was awake very early and basically told us how he was extremely rich and had retired at 45 and was traveling the globe ever since. He went on to tell us all he knew about Istanbul, he claimed to know the place very well though he couldn’t even name the neighborhood we were in (he said it was his 7th stay).
Anyways when he found out I’d last my father the previous month, he told me “you know what will happen ? Something will happen in your life and you will want to tell him about it but then you will remember he is dead!” He said that as if he were revealing a little known truth about the universe. As if this were invaluable knowledge, not a common human experience you sort of gather in the 48 hours after your parents die. I mean I wanted to call my father and tell him who came to his funeral and have good gossip about it. I didn’t need that trite observation from a garden variety idiot.
He then said “you will get a big promotion now, life will take a better turn, you’ll make a shit ton of money, that also happens after parents die. You win and you win big”! I decided to have coffee and get up, he followed me. I dropped my spoon and as I was going to pick it up, he kicked it under a table saying: “looks like you need another one”. He snapped his fingers at Mustapha saying “pick it up, sorry buddy”. I was irate of course and picked it up myself.
I avoided breakfast for my last day at the hotel and continued to try to learn Turkish from beer bottles, wondering what would my father think of the idiot I met on the roof.
