A journey: Mohammad and me

    God’s choicest blessings sometimes come to us unsought, unrecognized and,  at first, unappreciated.
    That’s how it happened with us, Mohammad Jodah, a boy of Palestinian heritage, and me, a retired journalist whose ancestors came to America from half a dozen European countries.

    When we initially encountered each other in the modest suburb we share across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, we both thought we would only become casual acquaintances. We never imagined that, five years later, we would be claiming one another as relatives, not by blood but of the heart.
    Our relationship began on a winter day which went unmarked on our calendars, when Mohammad was either still 7 years old or just turned 8. I was out walking my two dogs and he came over to pet them, but they wanted to move forward. So Mohammad just trailed along. He watched intently as I worked the pooper-scooper, collecting a load and dumping it down a drain. He asked if he could do the job and I let him. He did well, except that he rushed at my schnauzer before the dog was finished his business, making him nervous. After I explained that even animals need some 
privacy, Mohammad curbed his overeagerness and became a regular on our outings, the unofficial poop control person for our little party.
Display of empathy
    From this earthy beginning, our conversation soon expanded to include spiritual as well as philosophical subjects. The moment we first connected on a deep level was when Mohammad asked about my husband, whom he used to see outside our home in a wheelchair. I told him that he had died several weeks earlier. He wanted to know if he had become an angel. I told him that I thought that he was still a human being, but that he was up there with the angels, because he had been a good man. “Does he see God?” Mohammad asked. I answered that I believed he did. “I want to see God,” Mohammad announced, adding after some consideration, “but not now.” I told him I felt the same way. We smiled at each other, a Muslim child and a cradle-to-senior Catholic who had moved onto solid common ground: our love of this life and our intense interest in the next life.
    Mutual trust – that we liked and respected each other beyond our obvious faults – developed as well. One day, the doggies and I came upon Mohammad as he struggled along on an old pair of skates. He said that he had left his bike outside his house 
and it had been stolen, the second time this had happened. “I’m 
not perfect,” he solemnly told me. “Neither am I – and I’ve had a lot more time to work on it,” I said.
The search for peace
    Most summers, Mohammad, who was born in the United States, traveled to the Middle East for long visits with his many relatives living in the vicinity of Jerusalem.
    One fall, he returned wearing a T-shirt which his mother had bought him that featured two birds kissing beak to beak, an Israeli flag behind one and a Palestinian flag behind the other. On the bottom, one word was printed – “PEACE.”  I never discussed political issues with his parents, but their hope for their homeland became clear.
     In our time together, Mohammad and I shared tales about our travels as well as about experiences which strongly affected us. One day, he asked me if I’d seen anyone around his house a few nights earlier, because
someone had smashed pumpkins out front. I hadn’t, but I said whoever was responsible shouldn’t have done that. Then, I told him about the time when a stranger had come after us as I was out walking my dogs, and a Muslim family had rescued us. Mohammad was delighted with this happy ending.
Sharing a loss
    Soon we both sustained a loss and we shared that, too. My schnauzer got cancer and had to be put to sleep. I scattered his ashes in my backyard garden. When Mohammad learned this, he asked to see where he was buried and brought along a group of young friends, so I held an impromptu funeral service, saying, “We give Danny back to God, and we pray for Joan and Ringo (my Pekinese), who will be lonely, and we pray for all the kids here today.” Several voices chanted “Amen” or the Arab equivalent, pronounced “Ameen.” But, months later, I introduced Mohammad to Mickey, a lively part-Chihuahua stray I had found in a local shelter. Mickey immediately jumped all over Mohammad and they bonded.
    All through the course of our friendship, we enthusiastically supported each other’s projects. When he went around the
neighborhood selling items shown in a gift catalogue, I ordered 
three tiny glass angels. When I started helping students with their reading and writing, he said he wished that I was working at his school.
    Just as importantly, we nourished each other’s dreams. I 
encouraged him when he announced he plans to become a commentator.
Once, he informed me and a friend his age that someday he may run for 
president of the United States. Rolling his eyes, the friend said, “If 
you’re elected, I’m leaving the country,” and they both giggled. I smiled, but later I told Mohammad that he could be whatever he 
wanted. And Mohammad told me, a twice-widowed woman 
in my 60s, that I’m not too old to marry once more, after I said I was interested in doing so.
    Over the past two years, our walks together lessened, as Mohammad joined after-school sports and I ventured out with other companions. Yet our friendship endured. With his parents’ blessing, I offered to take him along with me and my mother to a Safe Halloween party in the parish hall of my church, St. Cletus, and he agreed to go. I was worried that he would be uncomfortable in a heavily Christian environment; however, he jumped right in and started operating an unmanned, spin-the-wheel play station. He developed one of the longest customer lines around, as he called out, “Kids, I have a deal for you – two prizes if you hit orange or black.”
Christmas carols
    Additionally, he and I sang carols together at my church’s Christmastime bonfire. I advised him to just be silent when the lyrics on the song sheets conveyed something he didn’t agree with, but soon I realized he was belting out “O Little Town of Bethlehem” with gusto. He explained later that he had been to the town and had gone into the Church of the Nativity to see where Jesus, whom Muslims consider a holy man, was born. I had visited the church, too, as a pilgrim, and we both remembered entering the cave beneath the ancient structure and finding the silver star that’s believed to mark the exact spot of the birth.
    A definite turning point in our relationship occurred the summer before last during our visit to the Audubon Zoo. Over lunch there, Mohammad suddenly told me that I was like a grandmother to him – a “Louisiana grandmother” – since he has one real grandmother in Memphis, Tenn., and another in a town near Jerusalem. Deeply moved, I told him he was truly a grandson to me. When I asked about his grandfathers, he said they had both died. The youngest of four siblings, Mohammad admitted that he was concerned that “if all my people die, I won’t be Mohammad any more.” “Yes, you will,” I said. “God will send other people to love you, just like he did for me.”
Always thinking of others
    Early this year, Mohammad became a teenager. Already, I’ve noticed his good mind is increasingly thoughtful and his good heart is increasingly tender. Not long ago, he told me that he had decided not tell another neighbor he was sorry his dog had been killed so as not to stir up the man’s pain. And lately, he has been acting like a surrogate big brother to younger children of many faiths; in one incident, he stood up for a little boy who was being bullied. At the same time, he has obviously been thinking about his own future. He’s been talking about going to college and about marrying: “She can be poor, but she has to be beautiful, and I want to have six kids – and a dog.”
    As for us, we relish the continuing joy of our unexpected relationship, which we both now consider to be a treasured gift from God. We’ve gone from him being interested mainly in my dogs to him saying our closeness will never end and from me thinking of him merely as a nice little kid to me telling him that even after I leave this world, I will still be watching over him.
    At some far distant moment, when I finally may be seeing God and when Mohammad has most likely become a beloved grandfather, he may get a glimpse of a pooper-scooper in action. If and when he does, I hope that he smiles, remembering us.
    Joan Treadway Glaser is a retired writer for The Times-Picayune and a St. Cletus parishioner. She brings Communion to patients in an area hospital.