The Healing

by Saeeda Hafiz

  The next day, I woke up on the couch. I sneezed uncontrollably and I picked up the same routine I’d had at Stacey’s house, minus the bath. I watched dumb TV, then Oprah, and then ate cold cereal and ordered cheap pizza.

  That first afternoon, while my mother was at work driving the school bus, I lay down on my mom’s couch and took a good look around my new sleeping quarters. Bits of the fabric were worn out in the couch, so much that I could see part of the wooden frame. I stared at the things in the living room—the Goodwill-purchased crocheted blanket, the vintage television that didn’t work, the only coffee table I had ever known my family to possess. If that coffee table could talk, it would have told a painful tale. Next, my eyes became fixated on a royal blue velvet chair. The chair looked like new, but it must have been twelve years old, even older because my mother had bought it secondhand. I remembered when she purchased the chair. Its seat cushion had the stuffing oozing out of it. You could see the spring coils. It was a dingy beige floral fabric. It had scratched up wooden legs. The chair looked like it had been in a fight and lost.

  My mother, at the time of purchasing the tattered thrift store chair, was taking reupholstery classes. She wanted to learn a useful trade that could add extra income to her work in the bar my parents owned. My mother knew how to sew clothes and wanted to learn how to fix up furniture.

  After my mother started that chair project, she would show us pictures every few weeks documenting her progress. I remember when she finished it. On that day, I thought to myself, “This woman knows how to transform a beaten down object into a work of art.” I must have been six or seven years old.

  Next, I sat up and shifted my eyes away from the blue chair that never seemed to age. Then through the archway that separated the living room from the dining room, I gazed at the dining room table and chairs. This was also a secondhand furniture set. I remembered that the seat cushions had been ripped. Mostly I recall that the wood had been badly scratched. My mother again performed magic. The seat cushions were replaced with a sturdy, bright teal woven fabric. The material was wool. The wood was re-stained to a dark, earthy color. When I rubbed my hand along the finished wood, it felt like a furniture set that I would touch when walking through the furniture section of Gimbel’s department store at the mall.

  I laid back down, my back against the seat cushions. I prayed, “God, I need the mother that can turn these frayed furniture pieces into functional objects, not the mother that was so beaten down that our home felt like a refugee camp for women and children surviving domestic violence. I need the mother who can make a home for her children in the same way Nancy made a home for herself. I don’t need the frightened woman who needs her kids to take care of her; I need the woman who can sew two pieces of cloth together into a stylish, wearable outfit like she did when I was in the fourth grade and needed a Halloween costume.”

  After praying, I turned on the TV. It was my method to escape.

  My mother and I had our routine. She’d wake up early and go to work. I would slowly awaken and examine my life. She’d come home for a quick lunch, then go back to work. Some nights she would go bowling or attend some kind of academic class. We didn’t ignore each other, but we also didn’t talk much. Funny, how when there is so much to talk about, hardly anything is said.

  At night when my mother came home, we would have simple conversation. I told her about Nancy and the house she remodeled, week-by-week. But, overall, we didn’t know what to say to each other. We were, like that cat expert said, sniffing around each other through small holes left unguarded. At night, we retreated to opposite sides of the house. My mother was in the upstairs north bedroom, and I was in the downstairs far south living room. Suspicious goodnights were exchanged.

  On the third day, I woke up on the couch, once again sneezing my head off. I repeated my daily routine. I made sure the curtains were tightly shut so very little light could get through during the day. My daily schedule was being set by what TV show came on at what time. The news at noon, Family Feud at 12:30 p.m., All My Children at 1:00 p.m., Guiding Light at 3:00 p.m., Oprah at 4:00 p.m., the local news at 6:00 p.m., Jeopardy at 7:00 p.m., Wheel of Fortune at 7:30 p.m., some sitcom or TV movie at 8:00 p.m., and asleep by 11:00 p.m.

  On the fourth day, again I woke up sneezing. It was the weekend. I overheard my mother on the phone, “Yeah, that’s her. She sneezes like that every morning.” By the way she was speaking on the phone, I knew that she was talking to my Aunty Clair. They talked on the phone every day. My mother also had a familiar tone that I recognized. The tone was, whatever poor health you are experiencing right now, it better not cost me money or time. It was not the June Cleaver, “Ward, I better go and check on the Beav,” tone.

  I sat up and looked at the walls. There were cracks in them. The ivory-colored curtains were graying. The IBM electric typewriter was on a metal cart with wheels. “Which mother lives here? The refugee mother, or the restoration mother?” I slid back down into sleep mode and waited for her to leave the house so I could continue my depression routine.

  On the fifth day, I woke up sneezing. I hadn’t showered in days. My neatly close-cut signature hairstyle was no longer a low-to-the-scalp Afro. It was a scare-fro, like the one Don King wore into the boxing arena—wild. Both my pajamas and my body had an odor. I walked upstairs to shower and freshen up.

  As I was getting dressed, I stumbled upon my turtle-stone in my bag. I thought of Kathy, who had offered to connect with me whenever I decided to come to town. I called her.

  “Hello. Kathy? I’m in Pittsburgh. Everything in Atlanta fell apart. I stopped working as a chef and I let go of all my other clients that I had in Atlanta and came to Pittsburgh to figure out my life.”

  “Saeeda, here’s what you do. Listen. Give me your address. I am going to send you something. I know the kind of space you’re in. When you get my package, call me.” Kathy said this with the same enthusiasm she’d had when she’d given me the turtle-rock. “Sorry that I can’t talk right now. We’ll talk later.”

  Without fail, the next day I woke up sneezing but I also heard the mailman. I went to the mailbox and Kathy’s package was there. In those days the post office tried to deliver mail overnight within the same city. I opened it, and inside were two books, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, and The Greatest Salesman in the World, by Og Mandino. I called Kathy immediately.

  She told me to read The Greatest Salesman in the World first. I took a long shower, got dressed, grabbed my turtle-rock from the suitcase, and placed the rock on the coffee table. For the first time since I had been staying at my mother’s house, I didn’t turn on the TV. I sat down on the couch and opened to page one.

  Hafid lingered before the bronze mirror and studied his reflected image in the polished metal.

  “Hafid,” I thought. “That name is close to my name, Hafiz.” Perhaps this was a sign. It was rare that I would open a book and read an Arabic or Muslim name. Most names in books I’d read were European.

  I reread the first sentence. It gave me the same feeling I’d had when I was in college and befriended an elderly woman in Philadelphia who had said to me, “Your name is Hafiz, Saeeda Hafiz? Hafiz like the Persian poet Hafiz?” I didn’t know the Persian poet, but when she started to describe him as a master Sufi who wrote about love for the divine with the symbols of wine and the wine bringer to illustrate his intoxication with life, I too felt a mysterious satisfying inebriation. This was in contrast to my feelings when my dad talked about our name, Hafiz, saying the name means “master,” one who masters or memorizes the Quran. My dad further explained that the name Hafiz made white America notice that he was not accepting the slave names forced upon us. My adoption of this name angered my grandfather, who saw it as a blatant rejection of him, not the white man.

  I reread the sentence again. Then I read the next line, and then the next line. I was off and running. The story was a quick read. I read
the whole thing in one sitting. I called Kathy that night to thank her.

  “It was an interesting story,” I said. “It made me smile quite a bit.”

  “The affirmations really do work. You should try them, since you are feeling so down. For instance, the affirmation, I will greet this day with love in my heart,” really helped me when I was starting to build my business and rebuild my life after my divorce. Now start the second book. Keep reading inspirational stories. They will really lift you up.”

  I went to bed that night, again on the couch, feeling a little less depressed, and I felt a whisper of hope in my heart.

  The next day, I woke up to the phone ringing. My best friend from college, Buddy, was calling. He asked if I had been asleep, and he was right. He reminded me that Pittsburgh always made me depressed. I started sneezing. “Are you sick, too?”

  I told him no, but that every morning I was waking up sneezing. Then as I was talking to him, I realized that it was my allergies. I am allergic to dust and mold. My mom’s house was damp and the rooms were cold. The carpet was frayed and there was so much clutter.

  “I gotta get out of here.” Then Buddy graciously invited me to come visit him in Washington, D.C. He was there on business. When I told him that I didn’t have any money, he offered to pay my fare as an early birthday present. He invited me to come to the hotel and just chill out. He said I could order room service, take long baths, and enjoy the fact that housekeeping came every day—no dust, dampness, or mold.

  Then he confessed that he and his partner Manuel had just broken up and he needed someone to talk to as well.

  * * *

  A few days later, I boarded an Amtrak train at the newly renovated train depot in downtown Pittsburgh.

  On the train to Washington, D.C., I saw my life’s history moving from one sad memory to the next.

  I thought long and hard about the state of my nuclear family and how it felt more like a nuclear explosion, all of our lives scattered in toxic radioactive particles emitting poisonous ions.

  The latest reports on my dad were that he was experimenting with crack cocaine. He had used different kinds of drugs and couldn’t believe crack was as powerful as people had said. So, as a challenge to himself, he started smoking it, too.

  This should be shocking, but it was coming from the same man who had once faked his own death to see how people would react. I will never forget telling my boss at the bank that my dad was dead. My boss coached me along in my grief as I searched for meaning. Then I found out months later that he was alive and well in Cleveland. It was some kind of test or hoax. When I explained it to my boss, he must have thought that I was a freak and a liar.

  My sister, then with a total of six children, was nowhere to be found. My older brother was destroying his life. He went from college graduate, to radio announcer/journalist, to fireman, to father of three, to divorced-deadbeat-dad-crack-addict.

  My younger brother was struggling from job to job, with alcohol problems sprouting up in between. He was losing touch with his daughter, which was breaking his heart.

  Now, my life was coming undone.

  In a D.C. hotel room, I woke up between Egyptian cotton sheets, six hundred-thread count. The day before, I hadn’t known the meaning of a thread count until Buddy told me.

  The light streamed through the window. I listened to my friend Buddy take a shower, while the smell of sandalwood traveled underneath the bathroom door. I chuckled to myself and thought about how he didn’t have those fancy soaps before he came out. Since he had come out as gay, I realized, he had become more stylish.

  I looked around the room at the wooden desk, the small brass desk lamp with the green lampshade, and the mirrored closet door. Yesterday, I had awakened in my mother’s living room on the couch, sneezing my head off. Today, I wasn’t sneezing and my surroundings were much improved. As I listened to the water go down the drain in the shower, I couldn’t help but think that the same force of gravity that was draining that water was the same force pulling me down. I was convinced that it was some dark force dragging my family down. I felt doomed, so I put the soft fluffy pillow over my face and went into a deep sleep.

  “Hey! Wake up!” Buddy was standing in the open doorway wearing a slick dark suit and Kenneth Cole shoes. He was all ready to leave for work. “I wanna know, What sustains you when all else fails?”

  “What?” I said, as I turned over, half waking up. “Go to work. Leave me alone.”

  “I’m serious. When we go to dinner tonight, I wanna know, What sustains you when all else fails?”

  When I finally woke up, I sat up in bed, and that question floated around my head and in my brain like an illuminated fairy. Of course my belief in God is what sustains, but as soon as I said that aloud it didn’t feel true. If that wasn’t the truth, what did sustain me?

  I took a shower, a long hot one, thinking the steam would help reveal what sustained me. The shower was great, but it didn’t help me produce an answer.

  I unfolded my yoga mat. I hadn’t done yoga in many weeks. I did slow sun salutations, thinking that as I held each posture I might hear that same voice that I had heard in my first yoga class. Perhaps that voice would tell me what sustains me when all else fails. I did round after round, but no voice spoke to me.

  I sat down to meditate. I also hadn’t meditated in weeks, but surely this would be when the answer would come. I stared into blackness, softly repeating Om. I started to feel more at peace, but I was not any clearer on what sustained me.

  I left the hotel room and went for a walk. I found a restaurant that served some healthy items. I had a veggie sandwich on whole-grain bread. I practiced my meditation chewing techniques, thinking perhaps this would put me in touch with my sustainability core. The chewing was very relaxing, but that was all it was.

  I returned to the hotel for a nap and woke up disappointed. In the past, my dreams had always helped me solve my soul-searching queries. I began to run some bath water. I called room service to bring me two cups of table salt. Waiting, exasperated, I hollered out, “What does sustain me when all else fails?”

  Then, a knock on the door, and a male voice said, “Room service.”

  I laughed. I added the two cups of salt to the almost scalding water. I slowly got in. I wrapped two dry towels around my shoulders to contain the heat. Submerged and sweating, I asked again, softly. Staring at the shiny metal faucet, I could see my distorted reflection. I closed my eyes, and my mind whispered, “The present moment. The present moment is what sustains you when all else fails.” I continued sweating and felt relieved. “Taking an authentic action in the present moment is what will always sustain you.” Gentle tears fell from my eyes.

  I took my time getting ready to meet Buddy for dinner because I wanted to savor the richness of that statement, repeating to myself, The present moment is what sustains me when all else fails.

  At dinner, Buddy talked a bit about his job appraising commercial real estate. He opened up about his heartbreak with Manuel. We ate well. He enjoyed a glass of wine and a cocktail. Then he looked at me and asked, “Do you have an answer for me?”

  “Yep. The present moment is what sustains me.”

  I told Buddy about my day and what had happened, and I concluded with, “Now, I know what the phrase ‘all men are created equal’ means to me. We all have the same opportunity in the present moment to choose how any event will make us think, feel, and act. We don’t all get the same kind of life, but mostly everyone has this ability to choose in the present moment.” Buddy smiled, and said, “Aw, Bunky,” using his pet name for me.

  “I might not be doing well at my business, and it might be failing, but that doesn’t mean that I’m worthless. I might come from a family with lots of unfortunate situations, but that does not mean that I don’t have value. I can choose different thoughts, words, deeds, and intentions that will redefine my situati
on.” I paused. “I am curious. Where did you get that question anyway?”

  “When Manuel broke up with me, I was falling, spiraling down, fast. Once when I was at a Radical Faerie meeting, someone read this famous Native American poem called “The Invitation.” That line is in the poem. Afterward, before getting on the train from NYC to D.C., I grabbed a copy of it. I wanted to think about what would sustain me now that my life with Manuel is over. Because even though life feels like it is over and I can’t go on, we are still faced with what can truly move us forward.”

  * * *

  After three days in D.C., I returned to my mother’s house in Pittsburgh. I didn’t know what I would do, but I did feel empowered to do something.

  The next day I woke up and, without fail, I sneezed and sneezed.

  “What is wrong with you? Why do you sneeze every morning?” she said, stuttering a bit.

  “It’s all the dust and clutter in here. Why do you have all this secondhand knick-knack stuff, anyway?” I watched her nose wrinkle. Her rounded, slightly pointed nose held up her glasses. Her light brown skin made her full face glow. It was weird seeing how much we looked alike.

  “Look, you weren’t invited here. You just showed up,” she said in a low, sassy tone. My mom looked fatter. I paused. I was quickly reminded of all the times I had heard my mother say, “I didn’t have to give you life. All the sacrifices I made for you.” To which I had always secretly thought, “Why didn’t you abort me when you had the chance? You think I like living through this misery with you?”

  We weren’t raising our voices, but it was clear that we were fighting. I was ready for this fight. I had always rehearsed what the not-so-good girl would say to her mother if she felt entirely free to do so, and if she were not always trying to protect her mother from another awful life situation. Somewhere along the growing-up-way, I had decided not to be a problem for my mother, just a joy, because it was clear that she’d had too much of the other stuff.