Forgot about Habib on Boxing Day

On the secular calendar, today is Boxing Day. I have no idea what it's about and never cared to look it up.

But I've had a semi-serious tradition with a former co-worker to joke with each other about having a boxing match on Boxing Day.

At my first job, I worked with a gentleman named Habib Arsala, a former OB/Gyn in Afghanistan. Habib is a very affable man that I really enjoyed working with. Habib and his family lived in that country during the conflict with the Soviet Union in the 70's and 80's. In the early 80's, a sympathetic path to leave the country was set up for Habib and his family. He told me this story one slow weekend at work. The driver, the coordinator, the helper, the pilot all were not happy about their country's direction so they fled. It was all a very cloak and dagger affair. I was riveted by his story.

Habib and his family, by way of Pakistan, Germany and a few places in the states, made his way to, of all places, Oklahoma City where he began his new life. He tried a few times to become a physician here in the states, but was never able to pass the tests with a high enough score. While I worked with him in the late 90's, his English was decent, and he could almost always get his point across, but language might have been a barrier back then for him.

Habib was able to secure a job as a very competent phlebotomist and also a pharmacy tech. He has been working at a large hospital for years now. That is where I met him, as a young pharmacist.

My first Christmas to have to work at the hospital was where we started the Boxing Day tradition. It was the 26th and he asked me what was the significance of Boxing Day. I didn't know and he decided, jokingly, that we would have a boxing match to see who was the strongest. I (also jokingly) told him that "the old man" didn't stand a chance because of our age difference and also my long arms. He said that didn't matter at all. LOL! We had a good time with it.

We were both working again the next year and went through the same fun routine on Boxing Day, and so the the tradition was born.

I moved on to another job the following spring and he called me the next two years right after Christmas to "threaten" each other again. It was fun.

Over the last 10 years, we haven't called each other every year, but maybe one out of two years we'd catch up on the phone for Boxing Day. We had company today for Christmas and we were pretty busy so I didn't think of it until it was a little late. Tomorrow is a Saturday, so maybe we'll hook up.

I don't miss working at the large hospital but I miss the experience of working with Habib. He taught me much about being an adult. His unique viewpoint, being a very respectable person of Middle East descent having acclimated to Western culture in America, was a good example for a brash young adult.