On Grief and Loss

2013 has not been a kind year to me. It claimed the two people who taught me most about love and compassion in my childhood. In January, I lost the man who raised me; and in December, I lost Auntie Anne, the lady who ignited my love for English and the only person who ever read me bedtime stories as a child. After her death, her daughters, my uncle and I found solace in each other’s company. 
But my grandfather’s death; now that was a different story. 

The post I'm sharing today was written after I came back from his burial, in fragments, on tattered sheets of paper. Every time I sit down to write, this unshared piece casts its shadows over me and almost paralyses me. I want it to stop lurking in the shadows and therefore I’m setting it free. Out in the open. As a final step in my grieving process. Today, one year and one month and eight days after his death, I still miss him and always will. So here it goes... 

Friday, January 25^th, 2013 

This morning, we took our last ride together—my surrogate daddy and I. I rode with him to his grave. He was “sitting” in the back. And he never liked to sit in the back. It made me cry. 

He was a pilot and a chief and always in charge. He didn’t like to sit in the back. Ever since I was three years old, I was his second in command. 

Car rides were quintessential parts of our lives. For years, he drove me everywhere—mostly against my wishes—but the fun part was tagging along for the errands and the family visits and the road trips. 

Whenever I asked for his permission to learn how to drive, he used to tell me, “you’re my co-pilot! You learn by watching.” 

He died last night, without ever officially promoting me.

If I say that I am overwhelmed with grief, it’d be just another cliché, and an understatement. I am not overwhelmed; I am drowning in sorrow, literally choking on my tears. 

The longing to hear his laugh echo through in the car tore my heart apart. He was the most joyful person in the family. We lost happiness when we lost him. 

We rode together, him in a box in and me in black, both silent yet connecting. They'd wrapped him up in white cloth, and his face was covered—for eternity. I am never again to see his smile, never. I am never again to hear him laugh. This is somehow a fact that I have to live with for the rest of my life.  

I, the unwanted child of parents who got married way too early, was welcomed into the world only by him, the only parent I had ever known. 

My grandfather and Amira, my grandmother. 

He was only 41 when I was born, young enough to be my father himself. He who’d lost his wife, my grandmother Amira whom I was named after, at the young age of twenty-three and never remarried. He was a fountain of love, kindness, and tenderness—even when he was tough. And he is no longer here. 

I am in physical pain. My stomach is tied up into countless knots; my heart is beating its way out of my chest; and my lungs are constricted, compressed as if to refuse filling up with air. 

“El bakaa lillah” is one of traditional Egyptian/Arabic condolences formula. It roughly translates to “Only God is eternal/everlasting.” 

The trouble is, every time someone said that to me, it made me furious!  I wanted to scream. 

Yes, I know we are all mortal but how does that help me?  Why does no one care about my feelings, my pain, my grief? Why can’t anyone just simply wrap their arms around me, hug me tight and let me cry? A chance to mourn, to feel my loss, is all I need. 

Does God Exist?

Does God exist?

You might think it strange, or philosophical, or even blasphemous—this question that all of us have whispered to ourselves one day, if only in the back of our heads close to where our subconscious lies. Does God exist?

I do have an answer—but my answer is deeply personal, deeply mine. Will it quench your thirst? I don’t know but I will share it. Maybe you’ll see some truth in. Maybe you’ll find in it something that is not in books of scriptures. And maybe it’ll reach a secret part of your soul—the part the affirmations of scholars could never find.

A while back a close friend of mine asked me, “Does God exist?”  I looked at him and smiled wondering whether I should fall into this trap.

In Egypt, you are not allowed to ask such questions, although everyone does— but dares not admit it.

And in Canada, to ask that question was to invite an unwelcome rhetoric of evolutionary and scientific talk that is grounded in the here and now and nothing beyond.

But my answer, my deep personal answer, is not as glamorous or as thorough as the eloquent rhetoric you would get from either camp. So I hesitated, not wanting to sound like a sentimental fool. But the look of genuine openness in my friend’s eyes compelled me, almost begged me, to answer.

“Yes, he does,” I said as casually as I could. “I am sure he does.”

“Why?” He said with a sigh expecting a lecture on how everything is by design and how the stunningly accurate engineering marvels of the universe point to the existence of an intelligent deity.

He was about to be disappointed.

“Because I feel him in my heart. I know he exists. And if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive today.” My friend was dumbfounded. My answer was not clever, was not witty, was not eloquent, but it was true. It was my answer as I have come to develop it over the years.

There were far too many dark corners in my life…far too many calamities…far too many disappointments to navigate on my own. If it weren’t for God’s grace, I would not have made it.

I remember that when I was a child, alone in my bed at night, I’d cry and cry and cry for hours on end. Nothing would stop the pain and the tears…except the knowledge, the peace I found inside my heart because God is here. God hears me. And God one day will take me home.

I was unloved as a child; abandoned by parents that didn’t want me. A mother who can’t give love because she has never known it herself and a father who equated parental responsibility solely with financial support. It was in God’s love that I found peace and hope.

Maybe you are persuaded to tell me that it was a little girl’s illusion. That God was nothing but a Santa Claus figure or a Fairy Godmother who kept a miserable kid hopeful.

I tell you that this little kid could not—would not—have made it through the dark times if God did not exist. He manifested himself to me, not just in my heart, but also in all the people who loved, protected, and nurtured me along the way. He protected me from my rashness and my naivety and  my self-destructive urge. He solved problems I never know could be solved. He worked out messes I saw no way out of. And in my bleakest darkest hour, it is my faith in him that was the glimmer of hope burning that kept me going.

This is how I know God exists.

And you... what is your personal answer to "Does God exist?"