Sheila Meets the Family

Mike and Sheila Abusaab met in Durant, Oklahoma where Sheila was teaching summer classes. Mike was a student there and also managed the university cafeteria. When Sheila first saw Mike at the cafeteria she says he held his head down and seldom talked to anybody. Sheila inquired around campus about him and found out that he was from Jordan and was very smart. People who had classes with him said he never brought a book to class and always made the highest grade on exams. Mike later told Sheila that he couldn’t afford textbooks and he listened very intently to the lectures in class. He said anyone could do it if they wanted to. Besides that he had learned a lot of the subject material before coming to this country.

Sheila and Mike had their first date at the end of Sheila’s first summer of teaching. They went for ice cream at Dairy Queen. They dated every Friday night that Sheila was teaching during the summers. Finally after 5 years Mike told her they were both getting older and should get married. He also told her if she didn’t want to marry him to tell him now. Sheila told him that she had wanted to marry him the first time she saw him. Sheila took Mike to meet her family. “That went very well,” says Sheila. “After the visit my daddy told me that Mike was a fine, hard working man and would take good care of me and that I ought to marry him.”

Their wedding was a hurried up affair with a Justice of the Peace after Mike got off work and had to be at work the next day. Later it was Mike’s turn to take Sheila to meet his family in Jordan.

Sheila says when the plane touched down, she noticed s big crowd of people at the bottom of the plane’s exit stairway. “I told Mike that there must be a VIP on this plane. Mike said, ‘Sheila, you’re the VIP. That’s my family.’ He told me ‘when you meet my mother you kiss her hand 3 times and you hold it. She’s going blind and don’t be afraid. She’s going to touch your face, she’s going to grab you to see how big you are and she wants to hear your voice. You don’t need to speak Arabic, just English.’

“When we got to his house there were 250 people there. I told Mike that something had happened; just look at all the people. Mike said they were there to see me and told me not to talk too much or talk too loud. So I didn’t say anything to anybody until his mother grabbed my face and wouldn’t let it out of her hands. I thought she would never let go. She rubbed my hand and I kissed hers 3 times. She asked for a chair for me and I sat next to her for a long time. She told the 250 people that I was not her daughter in law. I was shocked and saddened and thought: that’s it. I looked at Mike and already had tears because I really loved him. He told me to straighten up and to stop crying, that she hadn’t finished. And she said real loud in perfect English, ‘Sheila is my daughter.’ Mike told me that she loved me more than she loved him.”

Mike and Sheila made their home in Big Spring and had several Sonic Drive Ins. Mike died last year.