unless it may be destined 🕊️

the pain & grace of grief

A few nights ago, I felt the first chill of autumn. I was heading home from dinner at my friend’s place, and when I stepped out of the apartment building, I shivered. It was the first night of the season that I was underdressed. The walk to the metro filled me with grief. Every change of season over the past year has filled me with dread, a signifier that time is marching on and so does the genocide in Gaza. This particular first dip in temperature towards autumnal chill filled me with a deep sadness, a remembrance that the cycle of all four seasons has completed, bringing us to one year of genocide.

The next day, I couldn’t open my eyes. No amount of sleep made me feel rested. When I finally peeled myself out of bed to attempt to start the day, I was overcome by tears. I was bewildered by my deep physical exhaustion and leaking eyes. I had a relatively good week, so this intense sadness seemed to come from nowhere. My avoidance of accepting that I was being visited by an intensity of grief convinced me to take a COVID test, grasping for a comprehensible reason to pin my exhaustion on. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that this was grief. That my body had been keeping the score, and that witnessing one year of our generation’s holocaust had seeped into my pores and lodged a traumatic depression into my being. I was due for a release—a surrender to the grief. 

I canceled all the plans I had for that day except for a somatic therapy session I was fortunate to have on my calendar. I showed up to session, already in tears, and let myself fully unravel. The healer asked me what the grief felt like in my body. It feels like a cement block that I am clutching against my chest, a weight that feels impossible to carry yet impossible to set down.

What else?, she asked. I feel a blockage in my throat, a speechlessness, an inability to give language to the incomprehensible. 

What else?, she asked. The space behind my forehead feels dense and fuzzy, like a muted headache.

I had my right hand on my chest as I spoke. She asked me to describe the sensation in my hand. I noticed my fingers were spread as widely as possible, desperately trying to contain an overflowing grief.

I think we need to call in reinforcements, Anam. If the weight is too heavy, and it can’t be put down, is there someone who can help you carry it?

Without skipping a beat, I said: My grandfather. My father’s father. 

Okay, she said. What does it look like to have his support in this moment?

I hesitated. I never truly knew my grandfather in his lifetime. He lived in Pakistan, and I lived in New Jersey. My memories of him in his final days when he came to the US for medical treatment are faint. My strongest memory associated with him took place sitting on the stairs in my home, seeing my father cry for the first and only time in my life after he had received news that his father had passed in the hospital. I don’t even know what his voice sounds like, I said.

That’s okay. Our ancestors have a way of connecting with us even if we didn’t know them in the physical realm.

I imagined myself as a child, thick bangs across my forehead, wearing a blue shirt. I rocked and cried, imagining myself held in my grandfather’s lap.

One year ago, I visited my parents’ homeland of Pakistan. On that trip, I learned that my grandfather, who held a PhD in Agriculture and whose life’s work it was to introduce crops to a newly formed Pakistan as a form of socioeconomic self-sufficiency, had planted the country’s first olive grove. That fact has lodged into my soul, an obsession that I keep returning to — a deep knowing that my being is a continuation of his.

Imagine yourself holding the cement block, the healer said. What does your grandfather’s support look like? I replied: His hand is on my back, a stabilizing force. It’s still mine to carry, but he’s walking alongside me, his hand gently guiding my path. He knows I can carry it.

The next day, I woke to newfound energy. I downloaded documents my cousin had sent me earlier this year, a preface to my grandfather’s booklet entitled “Pebbles From The Beach”— a compilation of some of his articles that had appeared in Pakistan’s leading newspapers. I have strived to jot down my ideas to suggest ways and means to overcome some of our socioeconomic problems, a purposeful rehabilitation of our rural youth, spread of literacy and functional literacy, reorganization of our field services in some of the vital sectors of our economy, wiping out deficits in edible oils and measures for attaining self sufficiency in food production. 

I took the pages to the botanical gardens, a twenty minute walk from my home. I found a seat in the gentle autumn sun, and unfolded the documents and began to read, highlighter in hand.

I did try to make the country self sufficient in edible oils as well as by introducing olives in the marginal lands of northwest Pakistan and the gulied areas of the lower hills. It met a great success, but it fell prey to the ignorance of one of the misguided and stupid advisers of the Martial Law Regime. A fifty acres orchard of this highly valuable and important oil crop was mercilessly bulldozed and destroyed by this Adviser. His Army bosses amusingly took no note of it, and the result is that the country went on draining out millions of US dollars on the import of this consumable item each year and God knows what will be the end of it. Had this “Mother Plantation” of this useful tree been saved and spread we would have completely wiped out this drain forever as the bearing life of this useful tree is even more than 1500 years, it is reported.

He went on to say: Anyway, these are the ways of “Nature.” Nothing completes unless it is destined to complete.

An olive tree I laid beneath with my friends in Deir Ghassaneh, a village in the West Bank.

After reading, I sat and thought of my previous day, my surrendering to grief. I thought about the pain of that day and began to realize it was not just any pain, but a growing pain. A cleaving of my soul to contain a strength to return to a project I have been dreaming of for years — a memoir of my time in Gaza. For the past year, as the genocide has unfolded, I have repeated to myself: It’s not time. It’s not time. It’s not time. There is no way I can return to memories of my beloved Gaza while its annihilation is underway.

One year and many tears later, many days of picking myself up after moments where I thought I couldn’t, I have shifted. There is no right or wrong time. There is only approaching the work from a place of loving surrender. This story must be told from a place of deep love and care from within me, a deep honoring of the Palestinian people of Gaza, who are more than victims, but stewards of our collective humanity.

I wandered through the botanical gardens, taking in the beauty of the flowers, plants, and trees. I watched children observe venus fly traps with wonder. I touched the leaves of various trees, noting their differing textures. Some were leathery and matte, others were silky and smooth. I sat on a bench across from a tall tree and I spoke to my grandfather. I asked him if he would join me as a guide and companion in this book writing process. Seconds later, a dried leaf fell from the tree and landed gently on the ground. I gazed at the leaf for a few minutes, wondering if it would get crushed by the dense Saturday crowds visiting the gardens. Somehow, it was unscathed. I picked up the leaf and carried it home, and set it on my writing desk.

Last night, I opened my file with story drafts for my book. It had been over a year since I opened this file. I sat on a floor cushion and practiced what I am learning in somatic healing. I practiced dropping out of my mind and into my body. Instead of asking myself what story do I want to tell? I asked myself, what story wants to be told? I closed my eyes and breathed. A memory surfaced of a time I traveled from Haifa in the north of Palestine to Ramallah in the West Bank all through several transfers of public transportation. I broke up the journey by visiting the Old City of Jerusalem, where I sat in Al Aqsa for a rest. Okay, I thought. This is the story I will work on tonight.

This weekend has been incredibly devastating in Gaza. The Israeli forces have besieged Jabalia in the north of Gaza and are attacking Palestinians through every means — airstrikes, bullets, toxic gases, starvation.

Before retiring to sleep, I sat in meditation and sent love to Gaza. I prayed for an army of angels to descend upon Gaza, I prayed for their protection. I thought about a previous sentiment I had written down months ago — I am committed to embodying a blooming poppy. In Palestine, it is said that a poppy blooms where a martyr’s blood is spilled. I thought about what it means to embody the grace of a poppy — that it is inseparable from the pain of loss it signifies. I felt gratitude for my grief, how it is intrinsically linked to the moments of grace I experience in these harrowing times.

Today, I awoke to a new day. I drank a cup of tea outside and felt the contradiction of the beautiful morning I was immersed in alongside the bloody night that had transpired in Gaza. Love, I am learning, does not need to collapse under the weight of its contradictions, it expands to contain them.

I came inside and sat at my desk. I observed the miraculous curves of the dried leaf and lit a candle. I closed my eyes and asked myself what story wanted to be told today. After a few deep breaths, I got to typing.  

I don’t know where these stories will lead, how they will come together. I don’t know if they will ever make it into a bound book that will be sold in bookstores. I don’t know if they’ll ever be read by anyone but me. All I know is that for every inch of Palestine they erase, I will write it back into existence through my words.

One year later, I return to my writing, guided by the words of a wise man:

These are the ways of “Nature.” Nothing completes unless it may be destined to complete.

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For anyone interested in exploring somatic healing, I can’t recommend Mona Abutaleb enough — check out her offering Soma el Deen here. It is a true gift to this world.