Hoda Read online

  Peggy and I graduate from Virginia Tech, 1986

  About ten years ago, Adel found a letter in my dad’s desk that we’d never seen before. It was from the bigwigs at West Virginia University, where he was chairman of the Department of Mining Engineering. Apparently, he had written to them and made his case for a promotion. He wrote that while he had a doctorate, some of the other professors did not; yet he was still the lowest-paid on staff. They wrote back with a “Sorry, Dr. Kotb . . .” That’s when we moved to Alexandria, Virginia.

  I have so much respect for my father. He never let his kids know there were things that held him back in life. He simply pushed forward, and pushed us, too. I know to this day he still pushes me, motivates me. And I crave the thing I can’t have. I want him to see that I grew into a person he’d be proud of. I crave hearing him say, “You did it. You’re there.” Thanks, Dad. You’re one of the true angels in my life.

  My dad, 1957

  Hala and Adel

  Picture this: my arm getting slammed in the door over and over and over again. On purpose—by my sister. I guess I should mention it’s because I have a huge handful of her hair clenched in my claw—and I won’t let go.

  That is a snapshot of my young life with my sister. And with my brother, too.

  • • •

  Remember how I told you I used to listen for Adel’s scream when we went to school in Nigeria? That’s because I knew the sound of it well. I caused it so often. He and I would wrestle every morning as kids. “I’ll meet you downstairs!” we’d say. Our games were not for the faint of heart or head. Adel has a scar on his right eyebrow from me pushing him into a bookcase—for fun.

  We three grew up thick as thieves. Thieves who stole stuff from each other. We fought hard and played hard, but if any outsider tried to mess with one of us—watch out. One year, Adel was stinking it up in school. (Turns out, he just needed glasses.) He brought home a D in math from a teacher I’d had the year before. He just was not seeing, and therefore not completing, his homework that quarter. When he stepped it up a notch (with glasses) and did all the assignments the next quarter, he still got a D. What was up with that? I got out the phone book with Adel sitting next to me and looked up the teacher’s home phone. (Good plan, Hoda.)

  “Hello, is this Mrs. Tarlano?”

  “Uh . . . yes.”

  “Mrs. Tarlano, this is Hoda Kotb. I’m Adel’s sister and I had you last year?”

  “Uh . . . yes?” (Read: Are you really calling me at home?)

  I went on to explain the inconsistency of effort in the math homework proportional to the ultimate grade given, blah, blah, blah . . . get it, Mrs. Tarlano? She sort of did. She upgraded Adel to a C–. We sibs protected each other. If you watch our home movies, the dynamic hasn’t changed much on who wears the pants in our trio.

  Hala.

  She wears ’em. I iron ’em, and Adel makes sure we’re clear about it.

  From one winter in Morgantown, West Virginia, there is grainy film of Hala lounging on a snow sled. I launch her down the hill, then pull up the sled for her every time. To this day, I just shake my head as we walk to the beach—Hala in front sans anything, me trying to keep up, weighed down like a rented mule with all the day’s gear. So it goes. My sister and brother are constants in my life. “Irwin” was (and still is) our joint nickname, plucked from a cartoon we saw as kids. Okay, it’s weird. But that’s how it is. On Christmas presents to each other, the tags all read “Irwin” and we just figure out through the handwriting who gets what.

  Hala and me, 2009

  • • •

  Hala is one of the reasons we’ve all stayed so close through the years. She is the glue. Her commitment to family is old school, rooted in the theory that years and miles don’t stand a chance against the bond of blood. She’s fiercely protective, loyal, and at the ready. When my dad died, Hala moved in with my mom. She also lived with my brother at one point when she moved back from working overseas in London. She stayed with me for about five months when I needed help and support with a health issue. Whenever our family ties have loosened—for college, careers, or day-to-day life, Hala has been there to tighten the loop. Many years ago, she engineered a tradition of weekly Sunday dinner together. Glue. With a side of chicken and rice. Hala now lives overseas again, and here’s the weird part: somehow, this girl will know on an average Wednesday what I had for breakfast, that Adel’s in a bad mood, and that my mom has the sniffles. And she’s in Dubai, eight hours ahead of us all! “Call Mom, she just got new shoes,” she’ll inform me from nearly 7,000 miles away. “She’s going to that thing tonight, so ask her about that, too.” Hala is Command Central. And my brother is Steady Central. Adel is patient, reliable, humble, funny, and as generous as they come. When I got my first job out of college in Mississippi, I was flat broke. And I needed a car. Adel had worked all summer at a Church’s Chicken, pocketing a total of $1,000. He saved every dime. The car dealer was demanding that I put money down, but I didn’t have a penny. Adel gave me his entire summer salary to buy that car. Without hesitation, he wrote me a check. He never said one word about it, either—there’s none of that with him. He’s gold. And now, he has a little gold nugget named Hannah. I promise I won’t go on and on like a typical aunt, but it must be said: Hannah is pretty much the perfect niece. She certainly came into our lives at a perfect time, when life seemed to need a few more watts. On May 29, 2007, Hannah lit up the delivery room and hasn’t stopped since. She’s subtracted years from my mom’s life and added a million smiles to all of ours. When she was first beginning to reveal her personality, I’d think, Okay, okay, when my mom would tell me about little Hannah’s brilliance.

  “Did you see what Hannah drew?!” exclaimed Teta (“Grandma” in Arabic).

  “Yeah, Mom . . . I think it’s a line. But, yes. It’s good.”

  And then, the more I got to know her, as I was able to travel more often to see her, I jumped right on board the “Crazy for Hannah” train. Toot! Toot! I’ll marvel to friends, “Hannah said, ‘It’s kinda windy’ when we were at the beach! Who says ‘kinda windy’ at her age?! This kid’s a genius!” Hannah changes the room. She’s instant happiness. She makes you relook at the small things and see the big, huge importance of them. Brown ringlets bobbing, she loves to scour my apartment for anything to throw out—just so we can go to the very cool trash chute. How did I miss that? It is very cool. We Kotbs had no idea a part of the family puzzle was missing until that sweet little pink piece snapped into place. Now we feel incomplete when Hannah’s not around.

  Hannah and Aunt Hoda, 2009

  “Is Hannah going with us?”

  (Pause.) “Oh, okay. I don’t wanna go either . . . not gonna be any good.”

  Adel takes on the role of daddy with ease. After all, he’s had the stuff you need in a Parent Tool Box since he was a kid—huge heart, infinite patience, even keel, protective. His wife, Colleen, completes the set as a really great mom and wife. She and Adel met each other on Match.com, two diamonds in the rough world of Internet dating. Physically, they are polar opposites: the fair-skinned, redheaded Irish lass and the dark-skinned, dark-haired Egyptian. But their hearts are identical—in love with the other’s. I watch them raise Hannah and marvel at the safe place they’ve created for her. Boy, that kid. My brother and sister. I am one lucky Irwin.

  Adel, Colleen, and Hannah

  My Mom

  Every morning, immediately after I get off the air, I call my mom in Washington, D.C., for her requested rundown of how the fourth hour unfolded.

  “Eye-eye,” I say.

  “Eye-eye, Hodie.” she answers.

  We then dig into a mile-high pile of minutia that only a mother could amass, question after question. “What dress did you wear? What color was it? Did you have fun? Were you warm enough?” Like I’m a kid who’s come home from a day at school. She hasn’t seen the show yet because she’s working, but a video awaits at home. “We had on so-and-so from the new TV series such-an
d-such and she was really great, Mom. It tasted really awesome, Mom. I wore the red dress with the black shiny heels, Mom.” No greater cheerleader could exist for a daughter. (At least not this one.) But Lord help her neighbors.

  My mother has, in a massive videotape library in her apartment, every story I’ve ever covered, every show I’ve ever appeared on. And I assure you, quality is not required to make it into that library.

  “Did you see the Dateline NBC—the murder mystery? How about Your Total Health? No . . . last time you did not see this one . . . sit down.” She’s relentless.

  And now, she has TiVo. To her neighbors, I’ll just say this: I am so sorry.

  My mom also thinks she’s solely responsible for the Today show ratings in D.C. “Wow, Mom—our hour got a 3 rating in D.C. today!” I’ll tell her. “I know—I sent emails to Linda and Nancy, and I also sent out an eblast to friends to watch,” she’ll calculate. “I’m not surprised.”

  My mom is a kick. I get that I have no perspective since she’s my mom, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone with a more positive outlook on life or who shows more joy in living it. “Guess what?!” she’ll say to me. “I am going to a Conway Twitty concert!” She’s already bought the skirt, the boots, and the hat. She’ll call and say, “You are not going to believe it! Umi and I got tickets to go see Tina Turner!” My mom loves nothing more than a new experience, with or without someone to share the journey. She gathers friends as she goes. When she vacationed in Paris and England by herself, she came back with a purse full of names and phone numbers of people she’d met. The same thing happens on the train, a café—wherever there are people. She is open to everyone and everything. Life is exciting to my mom.

  Mom: My inspiration from Day One

  And she’s incredibly strong. Always has been. During one of our vacations to Egypt in October of 1973, she was put to the test—with three small children. The Arab-Israeli conflict exploded while we were on vacation there. My dad was not with us because he was in Ibadan, Nigeria, readying the house we’d move into in the coming year. So my mom was on her own with three kids when the fighting came to a head. While we slept at my grandmother’s house, word came that all U.S. citizens were to leave Egypt. Now. My mom woke us and herded us into the living room. Officials had arrived carrying two different stamps, one red and one blue. Hala, Adel, and I held out our hands for the red stamp, signifying U.S. citizenship. My mom got hers and we headed out into the black night. Cairo was completely dark because the streetlights and car headlamps were painted blue to “hide” the city from bombing raids. My mom wrangled us onto a bus headed for Bengazi, Libya. Leaving by air was not an option. The Cairo airport had been closed down. Once in Libya, we were to board an airplane and fly to Italy.

  There were about six buses in our caravan. (I don’t recall this, but fellow evacuee accounts describe a green cross painted on the roof of each bus.) It was now around three o’clock in the morning and we kids thought this was a fine adventure. There was whispering and huddling and being awake at an odd hour. Someone aboard the bus handed out food rations to last the several-day ride to Bengazi. Adel and I proceeded to polish off the entire stash! Such American kids. “What have you done?!” cried my poor mom. We then whined and complained about the roadside bathrooms: “But there’s only a grate, Mom—and no toilet paper, only newspapers.” She told us, “Just go!”

  Our journey would cover about 700 miles, but before we reached Bengazi, we had to get across the Libyan border. Evacuee accounts of the crossing depict utter chaos. Countless cars, trucks, and buses were all trying to exit Egypt into Libya. The Libyan government refused to let people through unless their passports were translated into Arabic. I remember my frantic mom filling out everyone’s forms because she was the only American on our bus who understood Arabic. On the last leg of the trip, a terrible sandstorm made driving nearly impossible. After a few hours, we finally arrived in Bengazi. A U.S. representative arranged for hotel rooms, and the next morning we boarded a Bulgarian airplane for Rome. It was pouring rain when we landed. My mom somehow dragged three kids through the dismal night, not knowing a lick of Italian, terrified for her husband left behind in Nigeria.

  Family dinner in Florida, summer 2007

  • • •

  To this day, my mom’s unsinkable spirit is an inspiration to me. For nearly thirty years, she’s worked at the Library of Congress. Everyone knows Sameha simply as “Sami.” Along with 500 miles of shelved books, her closest friendships are cataloged in that library. They are as much the value of work to my mom as is the work itself. She and her longtime buddies plan fun coffee breaks, wear costumes to the office on Halloween, and often get together outside work. I can’t remember a time when my mom didn’t work. She has forever been on the move: a go-getter. When Adel and I had a paper route as kids, my mom would get up before us at the crack of dawn to drop off the Washington Post at different corners. That would lighten our load as we walked and delivered papers to each area. Her morning ritual was to run before work. Even when it was snowing, she would try to wake us up to join her. We wanted nothing to do with it! No surprise, then, at sixty years old, she vowed to run the Marine Corps Marathon. Hala, Adel, and I joined her in D.C. to cheer her on. We waved to her at the starting line and mapped out all the spots where we’d be able to yell to her. At Mile 3 she looked great, waving and smiling. Mile 6 was a problem. Temperatures had soared and the heat was getting to my mom—with 20 miles to go! When we saw her again at Mile 10, she was really struggling.

  “Someone has got to get in there with her!” said Hala. “She needs support!”

  Adel was wearing loafers, Hala had on sandals, and I had on sneakers—of course.

  “Get in there!” Hala told me. “Mom needs you!”

  For the next few miles, I ran with my mom. We talked and walked and ran when we could. Just move forward. Just move forward. I knew there was a time cutoff for when she had to reach a certain landmark, in this case, a bridge. In just a few minutes, officials were going to open the bridge back up to traffic. All runners who did not get there in time would have to board a bus. Horrors! Just four miles from the finish line and she’d be riding in a bus? No way. As the police officer was whistling us toward the bus, I grabbed my mom and we started running, traffic licking at our heels. We were crazy with fatigue but determined to do this! Somehow, we kept going. Eventually, we heard the trumpeting of the Marine Corps Band welcoming runners to the finish line. I stopped short so my mom could cross by herself.

  She did it!

  I was crying, she was crying, my sister was crying, and my brother, too. (Although to this day, he claims he was just hungry.)

  “I was not crying . . . I was just hungry, okay?” Adel insists every time we tell the story.

  (By the way, Adel did the same for me when I ran the Boston Marathon in 1996. He was my wingman the last six miles, wearing jeans and, yep, loafers.)

  With marathon mom

  P.S.

  People often ask me about my mom’s baklava recipe that I reference from time to time on the Today show. Baklava is a sweet pastry made with layers of phyllo dough, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with honey. My mom learned to make it with her family in Egypt and turned out endless batches for us kids while we were growing up. She still does. She either mails it or hands it off to me at the end of a visit.

  “Don’t you eat that on the train!” she warns. That’s because she wants me to take it to work and share it with the crew. She gets the biggest kick out of how long it takes for a pan of her baklava to disappear on set.

  “Six minutes, Mom. It was gone in six.”

  “Reeeeeeallly.” She smiles. She knows the baklava is her thing.

  “Did everyone like it? Did Matt get a piece?”

  “Yes, Mom. I cut Matt a piece.”

  Prepare to cut yourself a piece, too! My mom said I could share her recipe with you. Get ready. It is heaven.

  SAMI’S BAKLAVA

  SYRUP
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  1/2 cup sugar

  1/2 cup honey

  1 cup water

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  FILLING

  6 cups of walnuts, ground into small pieces (but not too fine)

  1 cup sugar

  2 tablespoons butter

  2 tablespoons water, or more as needed

  INGREDIENTS

  1 16-ounce package of phyllo dough (I use Athens Fillo [Phyllo] Dough, with forty 9 × 14-inch sheets)

  4 sticks of unsalted butter

  DIRECTIONS

  1. Make the syrup by heating all the ingredients together in a saucepan until the sugar melts. Then put it in the refrigerator to cool.

  2. Make the filling by mixing the walnuts and the sugar, then adding the butter and 2 tablespoons water, plus more as needed. (Filling should be just moist.)

  3. Melt 4 sticks of unsalted butter.

  4. Unfold packages of phyllo dough sheets.

  5. Brush 9 x 13-inch pan with butter; take 3 to 4 sheets of phyllo dough at a time, put in the pan, and brush with butter (keep the remaining dough covered with a piece of foil to prevent from drying out).

  6. After you’ve brushed approximately 12 sheets with butter, spread on half of the walnut filling and continue adding more phyllo dough sheets. Spread on the remaining walnut filling. (Make sure to leave enough sheets to cover the last walnut filling, and to brush every 3 to 4 sheets with butter. Drizzle any remaining butter on the top.)

  7. Cut entire pan into diamond shapes. (Don’t cut all the way through.)