Tyler<\/p>\n\n\n\n
_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tyler _______________________________________________________ Nilufar liked the lunch monitor job if you could call it a job at all. Every day she popped up at the local school and worked for an hour monitoring the kids as they played outdoors while the teachers took a break. Five hours a week. The earnings barely covered the gas price […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-233","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494,"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/233\/revisions\/494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shabbeedurshuja.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Nilufar liked the lunch monitor job if you could call it a job at all. Every day she popped up at the local school and worked for an hour monitoring the kids as they played outdoors while the teachers took a break. Five hours a week. The earnings barely covered the gas price but she, like many other women, mostly new immigrants with little English or foreign degrees who could not find anything appropriate for their education, vied for these sorts of work opportunities. There were some ups and downs but overall Nilufar liked it. Her husband worked in an IT company, kids were in their early adulthood, completely busy with their own lives. This window of an hour gave her a cherished break from the monotony of the chores at home. Kids in school can be quite mean, sometimes outright rude and infuriating, but at some point, you have to get used to all that. After all, kids will be kids! \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNil! Nil!\u201d A screeching voice called out as she was about to walk out of the backdoor into the fields. Today she had class four, a real bunch of rascals, she had to admit, affectionately. She was a mother around the clock and tried to be her best in dealings with these kids. It didn\u2019t always work. Sometimes she wanted to slap the devil out of their little rotten brains.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She looked back to find Vidya standing at the other end of the long corridor, very animated. She was from Sri Lanka and had a very heavy accent, much worse than Nilufar, something she couldn\u2019t help feeling good about. Nilufar didn\u2019t understand a thing she was saying but sensed something really terrible was happening out there in the fields and it definitely needed her attention.\u00a0 Usually, a teacher or other lunch monitors kept an eye on if someone was running late. She tried her best to be on time but today two morons somehow managed to smash into each other at a mostly barren intersection, resulting in a road closure. She had to turn around and take a longer route to the school. Vice Principal Mr. John Lobosky gave her a sidelong look, no words. Yeah, Nilufar got the message but you know what mister, shit happens.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Stepping out she was instantly face to face with a gang of fourth graders, who had surrounded and were verbally abusing a kid who stood at the center of the circle and was screaming every possible profanity in his vocabulary \u2013 and it wasn\u2019t that negligible by any means. Nilufar shook her head in total disbelief. What was going on with these kids? Were they all suddenly turning into characters from Stephen King\u2019s books?
The kid in the middle she recognized readily. This was the kid, relatively small with dark skin and sharp, loathful eyes, who had given her a sample of his rich vocabulary in profanity just the week before. All she did \u2013 being honest to her job unlike some of the other lunch monitors who just stood there and did nothing that they were supposed to do like monitoring the kids and making sure they were safe \u2013 had asked the kid not to roll on the ground. It wouldn\u2019t just make his rather worn-out clothes dirty but could have also given him scratches from contact with rough ground. She had approached him gently. The boy had just joined this year and everybody had already taken notice that he liked to be left alone, sat quietly in class, and played all by himself during recess \u2013 usually rolling on the ground or throwing himself at the school walls. Some staff had already assumed he might have had some sort of condition \u2013 possibly OCD or something of that nature. She was polite, her voice was as low as possible but still loud enough with a touch of authority. \u201cSon, you are not allowed to do that.\u201d She had said.
The boy stopped, scowled at her, and then blurted out, \u201cI don\u2019t care! Go away!\u201d
Nilufar was startled. As a lunch monitor, she had heard and seen plenty of stuff, often being the subject of ridicule by the older kids \u2013 for her thick English accent and shallow vocabulary to Southeast Asian garb to smell of ethnic spices. It took her a little time but she had learned to deal with that in a calm, impassive way. The same kids gave even the teachers a hard time, forget the lunch monitors! But a grade four student acting up on her was too much.
\u201cYou should not speak to me like that,\u201d she had strongly said, determined to establish her authority over that tiny boy.
That backfired badly. He went nuts and blasted out a series of profanity that she wouldn\u2019t say even in isolation. Once the moment of shock had passed, she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to the vice principal\u2019s office.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Lobosky brought a quick end to that chapter by allowing the boy to disappear and informing Nilufar that the boy \u2018s name was Tyler Smith, must have had some sort of disability, he wasn\u2019t sure what, but he had no interest in agitating him in any way. If he chose to throw himself on the ground, so be it. She could stay close and keep a watchful eye. If things got out of hand, only then she was to interrupt. She had tried to explain it was one of those dire situations but he smiled in a way as if she was talking in a Martian language.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Later, Vidya had filled her in with some more information about Tyler. Despite her deficiency in English she was a friend to everybody and usually managed her conversations using a handful of words and impromptu sign language. She was a hard drive of information on just about anybody in the school. \u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHe lives with grandma,\u201d Vidya had revealed compassionately. \u201cNo mom, dad. Not dead. Divorced.\u201d
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhere are they?\u201d Nilufar had inquired. Over the years working as a lunch monitor, she had seen her share of unfortunate kids. These things didn\u2019t surprise her that much anymore. You talk about all the starving kids working in slave-like conditions thousands of miles away, guess what, there was no need to look that far.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vidya shrugged and twisted her lips. \u201cWe are from Asia. Kids our life. These people \u2026 not like that.\u201d She grimly said, with complete disapproval of the locals. Then, after shaking her head some more in total disgust she added, \u201cThey are selfish. Mom with another man, Dad with another woman, and Tyler with grandma.\u201d
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since then, Nilufar had almost unknowingly started to pay a little more attention to the kid. Yeah, he had hurt her feelings with all that profanity but hey, the boy didn\u2019t have any proper guidance. Grandma must be in her seventies, maybe sick, not exactly in her best to raise a kid like Tyler, already alienated and deserted by his moron parents. She had noticed he didn\u2019t even bring proper lunch or snacks for recess. Maybe a couple of sugary cookies or a cheese sandwich. She felt pity for the boy but didn\u2019t want to get too much involved. She had no training to deal with special needs kids and feared good intentions were not enough. \u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Back to the present. Shoving some of the kids as gently as possible under the circumstances, she forced her way into the circle, sheltered Tyler with her body, and yelled at the top of her voice, \u201cSTOP! You can\u2019t treat him like that. Break up! Go play! Shoo! Shoo!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some of the kids quickly disbursed, fearing complaints from their parents. Few others stayed back, resisting, reasoning, and rationalizing their aggression toward Tyler \u2013\u00a0he says terrible things; uses profanity that if you hear your ears will fall off; hits people without any reason; and oh no, he is not disabled or autistic, he just is a bad, bad boy!<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It took Nilufar some time to get Tyler out of there, not as much as for the other kids but for Tyler himself, who would rather stay back and continue to yell words at his classmates, words that could potentially have her ears fall off. \u00a0Rescued, when she signaled him to walk with her as she strolled across the field watching kids busy playing on a bright day, Tyler refused and stood leaning on a light post, not even looking at her. He didn\u2019t look happy. Nilufar left it there. Sometimes troubled kids needed a little more time to absorb things that went around them.
\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The next day, as she came to work and strolled the fields keeping an observant eye on the kids, she suddenly sensed she was being quietly followed. A quick sidelong look proved her suspicion true \u2013 it was Tyler, walking behind her keeping a good ten-foot distance, eyes on the ground, lips tightly pressed in a grave face.\u00a0Just because he was walking behind her didn\u2019t mean she should get any wrong impression.<\/em>\u00a0He still didn\u2019t like her. He actually hated everybody.<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nilufar wasn\u2019t a child psychologist but she had picked up many things with all those interactions with school children and of course after surviving some tough years with two kids of her own. A mother must learn to outsmart her kids. She tried her best to ignore him while slowing down a bit to allow him to get a little closer so that she could potentially start a conversation, something of an icebreaker. She stopped under a tree to get away from the blazing sun.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI loved my grandma so much, especially the one from my mom\u2019s side,\u201d she muttered, looking at a group of girls walking like fashion models on a catwalk.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There was silence. She allowed that to linger. Tyler scratched his head full of short curly hair, dark as night.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou got two grandmas?\u201d Finally, he blurted out, his eyes squeezed, forehead creased.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNot anymore. They are gone to god.\u201d Nilufar responded, giving another quick glance at him.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI got just one. She is sick all the time!\u201d He pushed his lower lip outside and moved his hands in a hopeless gesture.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nilufar waited for him to say more but he didn\u2019t. She didn\u2019t insist. Little at a time. He needed to get more comfortable with her before opening himself up.
She noticed a few older boys got too close to the outer boundary. Next to the school was a common park and people of all sorts visited there. It was part of Lunch Monitor\u2019s job to stop kids from venturing out. As she moved out of the shade and strode toward the boys, she extended a hand to Tyler, inviting her to be held, which was ignored. She retreated her hand. Not too much! Too much attention too quickly could ruin it. Tyler didn\u2019t follow. Stood at the same spot until she returned about twenty minutes later circling around the field. The recess was over.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTyler! Get back to class!\u201d Nilufar called out.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Other days he wouldn\u2019t even move. Today he put his eyes on the ground and walked slowly back inside.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTell your grandma I said hello,\u201d she said as he walked past her. He didn\u2019t look or respond, but his face brightened. Nilufar smiled to herself. It was so satisfying to see any positive change in any troubled kid. She would have to find more details about Tyler. Maybe she could do more. \u00a0
Nilufar stayed back a little longer, to ensure the other kids he was having trouble with didn\u2019t get onto him again.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Several weeks had passed since then. Nilufar\u2019s mother had an accident back in Bangladesh and had suffered some sort of brain injury causing instant dementia. There were times she recognized Nilufar but mostly didn\u2019t. Her mind drifted through time in a strange way \u2013 sometimes she was in her childhood looking for her mother, another time asking for her deceased husband, wondering where he might have gone suddenly. She lived with Nilufar\u2019s younger brother and his wife. With their own two little children, this sudden situation was equally disheartening and challenging for them. Nilufar had called the school, told them he would be away for a little while, and flew back to Dhaka. The sight of her mother lost in her own mind had such a depressing impact on her that she extended her one-week stay to three.
A few days later, her husband called her to give her dreadful news. The night before there was an amber alert. A young boy was abducted by his father. Cops were notified and during a chase, the man rammed his car into a truck. Both the father and the kid were in serious condition. In the news they mentioned the boy was a student in the school where she worked.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nilufar found all the details in ten minutes. It was all over the net. Grandma had custody of the kid. Both parents were hateful to each other and had addictions to deal with. That was a setup they all had agreed to until the parents cleaned up their mess. Anger had overpowered Nilufar, an outrageous feeling of abomination occupied every part of her senses, and after a long time, she broke into a burst of profanity.\u00a0Why couldn\u2019t they just leave him alone?<\/em>\u00a0Iffing morons!<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Returning to Toronto hadn\u2019t eased her life much as she was constantly on the phone with her mother, sometimes begging her to take her medications, sometimes singing lullaby songs to help her go to sleep. Since being diagnosed with dementia she has been alert most times.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She had returned to her job as the lunch monitor. Tyler would come up sometimes in conversations. He survived and was released to a distant aunt. His grandma didn\u2019t survive the ordeal. \u00a0She passed away after suffering a stroke.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was almost July. Last few days of class before Summer vacation. Nilufar had walked around the field once and was standing under the shade of a tree, watching the playful kids keenly. A soft touch on her hand startled her. A quick glance revealed a complete surprise.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTyler!\u201d
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The boy held her hand strongly, looking up at her face with his deep black eyes and a rare smile that was nothing less than divine. There were prominent marks of long stitches visible all over his head and face, reminding her of the deadly ordeal he had to go through.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI looked for you!\u201d The boy whispered.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nilufar tried hard to manage her emotions, blocking the teardrops that were so eager to flow. A young overweight woman standing in the nearby parking lot waved at her, must be the aunt. Nilufar waved back. Tyler left her hand and hobbled back to the woman.\u00a0He\u2019ll be back. After Summer.<\/em>\u00a0The woman shouted something like that. Nilufar nodded and looked away. The tears of joy rolled down her cheeks.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"