The Queen of Jordan
I love this woman. She's a queen. A queen. Can you imagine actually being one of those? At her age? I first heard of her of course not through my extensive research on foreign affairs but because . . . she was on Oprah. I usually declare my Oprah watching proudly, but I actually do feel a little ashamed of this one. Anyway, as Oprah said during that interview, this woman is a quote a minute. She's so thoughtful and well-spoken. I just find her one of the most beautiful people in our world today, and I wanted to share her with you in case you neither keep up with foreign affairs OR watch Oprah. (Really? You don't watch Oprah? But she's the Aha Lady!)
I saw this episode of Oprah once in 2006. I had never heard of the Queen of Jordan before, and I did not remember any of the rest of the transcript—about the fact that her husband likes bar-b-que or that she monitors her son's television-watching even though he'll be king one day—but I remembered what she said about global citizenry.
On Friday, my 6-year-old turns 7. I remember when he was 4, and I was diagnosed with cancer. I knew one thing for certain. If I die, I thought, there is no way he will remember me. I didn't blame him for it, but I knew it would be true. And it broke my heart. I felt so jealous of the rest of his world, the people who could stay in his life and whom he would know and remember. I bought his presents last night. I stared at them in the cart and felt sad. They cost enough, they came from my heart enough, but they looked so cheap compared to how I feel about him. Those gifts will thrill him right to his toes, though. And he'll have no idea when he opens the Play-Do that I am actually thinking of the Queen of Jordan and how she can afford to give her son-the-prince anything he wants, but she doesn't. She's trying to teach him to be a citizen of the whole wide world. They're intense—the desires we have for our children and the love we feel for them. They're like a 50-dollar Golden Collection Volume I of the best Looney Toons episodes ever. But translated to them, it's just a cool cartoon.