“Mashallah,” Aunt Bila says to me. “You’re so smart, ya rouhi.”
In the background, the phone rings as everybody passes around the dishes and tucks into the food. The adults sit at the main table, which seats twenty. Houri and I are the only two of the younger generation invited to sit with the adults. The rest of the kids wander in and out, eating in the kitchen, in the den in front of the TV, or waiting for people to clear from the table so they can take their turn.
A scream. Shattered glass. A moan.
“Ya Allah, ya Allah, please, God, no!” Aunt Bila wails.
Dad and I look at each other, and my breath catches in my throat.
* * *
It was a stroke, they tell us at the hospital.
The family mobilizes, rushing to hold vigil by Teta’s bedside. She went back into cardiac arrest—but this time, it doesn’t look good. Now the doctors are trying to make her comfortable.
Normally, there’s a limit on the number of people they’ll allow in, but the nurse quietly waves us through, letting as many of us as possible squeeze into the room. Waiving the rules, ignoring visiting hours—these are bad signs.
We line her bed, Aunt Bila and Aunt Ray holding her hands, Amal holding up a cell phone so Teta’s sister living in Syria, Great-Aunt Yara, can be with her at the end. Uncle Sammy and Uncle Omar place their hands on her arms, cousins clutch her feet, and Fairouza prays next to her head and wipes her forehead every few minutes, blowing gently on it as she says, “Rabbigh firlu, rabbigh firlu,” praying for God to forgive and cleanse her sins.
She can’t breathe without the help of the machine.
“Mama. Please don’t die, Mama,” Aunt Samiha wails, clutching her arms tighter and burying her head in Teta’s torso.
“Let’s go in the waiting room,” Dad says, trying to lead her away. Aunt Samiha throws off his arm.
“Laa!” No. “I want to stay with Ummi! You go to the waiting room, if you want.”
Dad backs off, retreating. Fairouza keeps stroking Teta’s forehead over and over, murmuring prayers.
The room is controlled chaos, praying and crying and whispering. Doctors and nurses periodically stop by to check in, but for the most part, it feels as if she’s been abandoned.
It’s inevitable.
At some point, I need a break, so I retreat to the waiting room to stretch my legs and clear my head.
“I thought she’d live forever.”
I turn around. It’s Houri. We collapse into each other for a long hug.
“Where’s Lulu?” I say.
“Home. Rashid’s putting her to bed. I don’t want to expose her to this.”
“Maybe she’ll still pull through,” I say hopefully. “It’s not always fatal, right?”
Houri shakes her head. “I heard Baba talking to the doctors. It’s not if but when.”
We sit in silence. Houri gets up to find the remote, changing the TV channel to Judge Judy. It’s nice to simply be together.
Eventually, Houri stands up. “I’m going back in.”
“I’m gonna stay here a few minutes,” I say. “I want to be alone. Just for a sec.”
She nods and pushes open the doors to the ICU.
I pull my bullet journal out of my bag, trying to find comfort in my favorite Qur’anic verses, hadiths, and poetry.
I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of Sufi poetry recently, and one verse I’ve inked into the journal stands out, by an Iraqi poet from the eighth century named Rabia Basri:
O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell,
burn me in Hell
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise,
exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.
As I’m reading through the poems, my cousin Amir comes out, fatigued.
“It’s time.”
I’ve been gone less than an hour, but the room’s atmosphere has changed. Nobody speaks. My father’s face is tired and drawn. Teta lies on the bed, tubes gone. A decision has been made.
I hope Jido is there to meet her.
In the corner, my mother quietly weeps. She never cries.
Time bends as we wait for the inevitable. The room is silent except for the sound of Fairouza frantically praying over my grandmother’s body, her lips and hands moving in desperation and love.
When it does happen, Teta’s breath rasps and rattles. She never opens her eyes. She simply breathes, and then breathes less, and then she takes one last breath and breathes no more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
When I was six, my jido died. My mom tried to explain death to me, but everything about it was confusing. I failed to make sense of it, and I had so many questions: What happened after you died? What about before you were born? When people died, did they come back? Would it someday happen to me? It was all too scary and overwhelming. After the funeral, I slept in my parents’ bed for weeks.
Now, thinking of Teta, wondering where she is, the old fear looms again.
So I do what billions of people have done before me.
I pray.
Dad comes into the room while I’m praying over Teta’s body. My cousins Fairouza and Amal have left, giving me a rare moment of quiet with her. With so many people loving her, it’s a special thing to be alone with her—an honor.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he says.
“Will you pray with me?” I ask.
We lock eyes. He doesn’t say anything.
Wordlessly, he comes to stand next to me, clasping my hand.
We stand over Teta’s body together.
* * *
“I’m not going to make it to dinner with you and your mom this weekend,” I say to Wells. Serena has offered to take the two of us out. I’m standing in the hallway outside the room where Teta still lies, whispering into the phone. We’re waiting for the imam to arrive.
“Oh no. Is it your teta?”
“Yes. She…” I stop, unsure how to say it without it sounding too harsh. I can’t stand the euphemisms for death: passed away, moved on, departed, went to a better place. “She died,” I say.
“Are you okay?” Wells asks.
“I don’t know.”
“What can I do?”
“You’re doing it right now.”
“I’m here when you need me. On the phone, in person, whatever you need.”
“Wells?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” He pauses. “Hurry back, okay?”
“I’ll try.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Love you.”
A brief silence on the other end.
“Love you, too.”
* * *
Home.
The Islamic custom of burying the body within twenty-four hours means the past day has been a flurry of activity, culminating in the family gathering by Teta’s gravesite as her coffin was lowered into the ground at the Muslim cemetery outside Denton.
After the funeral, we delayed our flight for another few days, to grieve and mourn with the family—swapping stories, watching old videos of Teta, and passing around yellowing photo albums with snaps from her youth. I lingered so long over a photo of my dad as a baby, smiling on Teta’s lap, that Aunt Bila offered it to me to keep.
The family gathering might have been suffused with quiet resignation, but there was also enough laughter and love and light to power the entire city of Dallas.
But now that we’re home and I’m away from the helpful distractions of family, I don’t know how to properly grieve.
I don’t think Teta would want me to wallow.
I think she would want me to soar.
I tuck the photo of my father and Teta into my bullet journal, placing it next to my Qur’an on the bedside table before walking downstairs to help Dad set the table.
“How are you feeling?” I ask him.
“Sad,” he say
s simply, setting napkins down. “She had years left in her.”
I place the cutlery on the table, lining up the forks and knives at the proper angle. When Dad finishes putting his silverware down, I discreetly adjust it.
“You don’t have to help,” he says. “You’re fasting.”
“It’s okay. The food smell doesn’t bother me anymore.”
“If you’re sure.”
I nod. “Thanks, Dad. For praying with me.”
“How are you feeling, pumpkin?”
“I’m okay,” I say bravely, wiping an invisible speck of dust off the table.
He nods. “It was a shock.”
“I’ve been finding comfort where I can,” I say. “I believe she’s with God now. And I think she and Jido are together.”
He swallows, clears his throat, reaching down to adjust a fork. He moves it around, this way and that, leaving it perpendicular to the plate. “I hope so,” he says.
“What do you think? Do you think Teta is in heaven?”
“I don’t know if I believe in heaven,” he says honestly. “Part of me thinks we die, and that’s it. Dust, cells, returned to earth. I’m willing to concede I could be wrong. It would be nice to be wrong. But…”
“But what?”
“You must not have come across this in your studies yet. Muslims don’t believe we’re sent directly to heaven or hell after death.”
I flush, embarrassed to have gotten something so fundamental wrong. “We don’t?”
He fiddles with a spoon.
“So … uh … what do we believe?” The word—we—feels tentative and precious in my mouth.
“It’s been a long time…”
I nod, trying to encourage him.
“We stay in our graves until Judgment Day,” he says, “punished or rewarded until then. Once Judgment comes, our deeds in life are weighed, and we’ll be sent to heaven or hell. And even if you’re sent to hell, God’s mercy might still allow you into heaven eventually. Jannah, it’s called. Paradise.”
I don’t know if it’s my father teaching me about Islam for the first time, or my sadness over losing Teta, or my anxiety about the future, but I start crying.
Dad hugs me. I hug him back tightly.
“It doesn’t scare you?” I eventually ask.
“What? Death?”
“Yeah.”
He considers the question. “Sure,” he says. “But the main thing that scares me is failing you and your mother. Living out of fear, and not being the man I know I’m supposed to be. That’s what scares me the most.”
I nod.
He sighs, sitting down in a dining room chair. He looks like he’s aged five years in a week, some gray hair visible near his temple, his handsome face creased, his dark eyes tired.
“Hamdullah, she had a good death,” he says. “Surrounded by family. Our hands resting on her as she passed over. Warm. Loved.” He’s quiet for a second, contemplating. He looks at me and smiles. It’s tentative, but hopeful, too. “Wonderful life, good death. Isn’t that all you can ask for?”
* * *
That night, my parents come into the kitchen while I’m preparing my iftar. Five days left of Ramadan.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Mom leans her forearms on the counter and cocks her head.
I pull a lone date out of a pouch, setting it on my plate. “I’m okay. Sad.”
She nods sympathetically. “There’s no right way to grieve. Allow yourself to cry, to be angry. Every feeling is valid.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I glance between my parents. “Thank you both.”
Mom reaches over and takes Dad’s hand. He accepts it gratefully.
“There’s something we wanted to talk to you about,” Mom says.
“Am I in trouble?”
“Not this time.” Dad smiles.
Mom’s voice is tentative. “We were talking, and we know it’s late—”
“But better late than never,” Dad says.
“And we thought it would be nice if we fasted together for the last few days of Ramadan,” Mom says.
“But only if you want us to,” Dad says.
I gasp. “Are you kidding? I’d love that!”
The two of them seem pleased.
I struggle to hide a smile while addressing Dad. “So, you’re religious again, right?”
Panic flashes across his face.
“I mean, there are no atheists in a foxhole, you know…”
Mom laughs. “Mo, she’s teasing you.”
He chuckles, too, visibly relieved.
“When was the last time you fasted?” I say.
They look at each other, their brows furrowing.
“I did it in … was it 2000? Yeah, it must have been, because you weren’t born yet,” Mom says.
Dad makes a funny noise. “I was a teenager. Jido smacked me when he found out I’d been pretending. I was sneaking outside and eating when the staff wasn’t around. Uncle Sammy got me in trouble.”
“Sounds about right. Younger brothers.” I turn to Mom. “So you fasted on your own, without Dad?”
She nods. “I was new. You know how converts are.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I ask doubtfully. “It’s really hard. And, no offense, but you’re getting old.”
“You’re too kind to worry about us,” Mom says drily. “We’ll survive.”
“Besides,” Dad says. “It’s only four days.”
Mom laughs. “Famous last words.”
* * *
Later that night, I get a series of messages on Instagram.
They’re from Emilia.
Hi … sorry for the random msg. Been thinking about you recently, hoping you’re OK.
I don’t think I’ve been very supportive this year. I started googling stuff and went down the rabbit hole … anyhow, I’m kinda ashamed of myself, and I’m sorry.
I want to be an ally. If that’s OK. No need to respond if you don’t want. Hope your summer is going great. Xo E.
It would be easy to be dismissive of Emilia, to roll my eyes at her desire to “be an ally.” But people have to start somewhere, and I’m impressed by her willingness to swallow her pride and reach out. Plus, forgiveness is a hallmark of Islam: People make mistakes. The key is owning up to them.
I write back:
Hi Emilia, it means a lot—thank you. The Muslim Student Association is planning events next year for interfaith outreach. Maybe we could put our heads together and plan something? Love, Allie
* * *
Mom, Dad, and I spend the entire Saturday together in solidarity, waking up together at 5:30 a.m. to eat suhoor and to pray Fajr before going back to bed.
Mom and Dad won’t have the same luxury, of course. Dad comments on this at about five in the evening as our family huddles together on the couch, watching a movie marathon.
“I want to die,” Dad moans.
“It’s been half a day,” Mom says. “Keep it together, dude.”
“Why did we agree to this torture again?” he says.
“Because you love your daughter,” I say cheerfully, “and you are wonderful parents who are trying to support her. Now please be quiet so I can hear Maria sing about lonely goatherds.”
Around what would normally be dinnertime, Mom disappears to the store, returning an hour later with paper bags.
“Dinner?” I ask.
“Provisions,” she says. “I couldn’t bear the idea of cooking. I picked up everything premade from the Middle Eastern grocery store.”
“I don’t blame you,” Dad says. “The idea of being around food without eating it is torturous.”
“Hi,” I say, waving a hand. “Welcome to my life the past twenty-six days.”
Together, we lay out the spread on the table: dates, salad, hummus, pita bread, meatballs, rice with almonds, sticky desserts, Coke, tea, and rosewater.
My dad hands me a glass of water and a date.
“Here,” he says. “You do the honors.
”
I take a sip of water, reveling in the feeling of doing this properly with my family. It’s been lonely doing iftar each night by myself.
I bite into the date. It’s dry, yet it still tastes like perfection.
I look at my father expectantly.
He looks back at me.
“Um,” I say. “What comes next? I’ve never done this with anybody else.”
“We say the supplication for breaking the fast,” Dad says. “Do you know it yet?”
“Um. No…” Nobody had taught me.
He launches into it, seemingly from memory: “Allahumma inni laka sumtu wa bika aamantu wa alayka tawakkaltu wa ala rizq-ika aftarthu. Dhahabadh-dhama’u wab-tallatil ‘urūūqi, wa thabatal arju inshallah.” He smiles at my expression, continuing, “Translation: ‘O Allah! I fasted for You and I believe in You and I break my fast with Your sustenance. Thirst is gone, the veins are moistened and the reward is certain if Allah wills it.’”
Wow.
“And now”—he smiles—“we eat.”
After dinner, we stay up late, giving each other small gifts around the living room coffee table. Mom presents Dad with a box of his weakness—chocolate truffles—and then gives me a new bullet journal. I give my mom a handmade bracelet I found on Etsy, and my dad a hardcover political thriller.
“My turn,” Dad says, offering a bag to Mom. “Sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it, but you know how work has been. Tenure track waits for no one.”
“A new Chanel purse?” Mom teases, looking inside the paper bag. She pulls out a white T-shirt. The front is emblazoned with a cheesy family photo of us at Disneyland, back from when we lived in Southern California and before my dad finished his PhD. On the back, it says:
Team Abraham
Ready for Adventure
My mother bursts out laughing. “This is literally the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen, Mo.” She takes the shirt, sliding it over her Breton striped top and then kissing him. “I love it.”
All-American Muslim Girl Page 29