This is Life Without You

An (overly?) intimate documentation of me learning how to grieve my mother's death

[learninghowtomissher]

the in-between place || 03/26/2021 (nine years)

The other day I woke up in a haze. You know, that in-between place, where you’re not technically sleeping, but you’re otherwise in a dreamlike state? Anyway, I woke up, took my  morning cocktail of pain medication, and picked up my phone. All of that has become reflexive upon waking up. The pain medication is never far from my reach, and my phone has always lived under my pillow -- yeah, yeah I know it’s bad for me. I took a sip of water, hoping to rid myself of the feeling that my meds had become traffic-jammed in my throat. I looked down at my phone, and gaped at the screen. Somewhere in those reflexive, every day, new normal actions, I had done something I don’t think I’d ever done before. Google search results stared back at me: “Sania Wali UNMC” More to the point, an image result. There she was. It’s a criminally low quality photo, but there is no mistaking her. A beaming smile, periwinkle sweater, and painfully 90s leather jacket, standing at a 2002 Holiday Tea at the Med Center. I had never seen that photo before. I had seen that building -- UNMC was like a second home growing up. I had seen her don periwinkle, her favorite color, many times. I wish I didn’t know that jacket so well (sorry, mom). But I’d never seen this photo. Among a myriad of thoughts flowing through my mind as I smiled back at her face, her vibrance palpable despite low pixels, one thought rang out clearer than the others: She was real. Then waves of relief. Then waves of heartache and recognition that for so long now she has felt like a fictional character. A figment of my imagination. A piece of folklore. I wouldn’t change anything about being the only child of my single mother. But the very things that made our us-against-the-world love and bond so strong, made the loss uniquely devastating, now make me feel like I’m losing my mind. It feels like no one else remembers. Sometimes it feels like I don’t remember, either. 

I kept clicking links. There weren’t many, and the evidence of her life was small within them. But it was something. Someone’s CV came up in the Google search, so I clicked and scrolled. He was on the judging panel for my mom when she defended her thesis. “Wali, Sania. The Effect of Prenatal Exposure to Lorazepam on Adult Rat Offspring Behavior, 1994, University of Nebraska Medical Center, M.S. “ I already knew I could cry over citations, thanks to Bluebooking in law school, but not like this. And as someone with a legitimate phobia of rats, it also wasn’t new for the thought of them to push me to tears. But, again, not like this. If I think about this discovery for too long, I feel the white-hot anger within me transform from its ever-present hum to a screeching alarm demanding attention. The CV in question is long, reflecting a medical career full of accomplishments and spanning many decades. My mom should have had that. And here she is reduced to a citation on someone else’s. Still, my tears were as happy as they were mournful, equally proud and indignant. It’s something. She was real. Other people knew her, learned from her, and loved her. I simply can’t do justice to how it felt. To learn a new fact about her, to find a photo I hadn’t already pored over, I didn’t think I would ever experience that again. 

At the risk of alarming you, It’s hard to explain how uninspired I feel to be an active participant in my own life since being discharged from the hospital. I keep trying to express why to my therapist and to loved ones who want to know how my recovery is going, and all I’ve come up with is, “I don’t feel like myself.” And that’s mostly true. I don’t feel like a 25-year-old. I don’t feel like a law student. I don’t feel like a friend. I don’t feel like an aspiring-lawyer. But I also feel exactly like myself: sad, lonely, mourning the loss of someone (my mom) or something (a chunk of lung, my perceived healthiness, the loss of normalcy in already bizarre times). 

When I was in the hospital, it was easy to feel unmoored from reality. From myself. Some of it was probably the pain meds. A lot of it was looking at my surroundings and seeing nothing of mine. No friends, no family. Nothing familiar. And, yet, something. When they brought out the scalpel to insert my chest tube, I thought of the way my mom’s reputation preceded her as a surgeon in the refugee camp: “If someone really needed help, you called Sania. She could cut as fast with her left hand as her right.” I felt it in the ease with which I understood my medical team’s terminology as they discussed amongst themselves, and in their surprised amusement when I asked follow-up questions that made my understanding obvious. (“I thought you were in law school.”) The hospital’s visual resemblance to UNMC mercifully dug up memories of accompanying my mom to work and not visiting her there as a patient. In spite of how miserable I was, I was also at peace in a way I haven’t been in almost a decade. Content, in a twisted way. There was so much of her to be found everywhere I looked. So coming home has been hard. In the ways you would expect, and in ways you wouldn’t. In ways I didn’t. 

In the past few weeks, my mom has become the chief consideration in everyday decisions. Perfume with cardamom base notes, because I know she would like the smell. Mom jeans that, aptly-named, look like something I would’ve rolled my eyes at her for wearing. Earrings reminiscent of her favorite gold hoops. Celine Dion’s compilation album from 1999. Taylor Swift’s first three albums. Anything starring Denzel Washington. Sports highlights from the 2010 Lakers-Celtics NBA finals. I’ve come to realize that I’m desperate to make the world around me one that would be familiar to her, the way the hospital felt bizarrely familiar to me. A world she would recognize, and recognize me in. I know it’s in vain. She never met Nick. I don’t know if she ever visited Washington DC. We never discussed law as a career path. Enrique Iglesias has not released an album anywhere near as good as Escape. The Huskers suck at football. We’re in a pandemic. Life is nothing like it was when she was here, but it’s hard not to wish it was so. And it’s really hard not to feel resentful toward the obvious markers that life has changed, even when those markers are things and people I love. 

So I don’t feel like Leemah, the resilient advocate, soon-to-be lawyer, and unparalleled social butterfly. (And so humble, too!) I feel Leemah, the little girl whose whole world is her mother and who likes it that way. And I don’t know how to convince myself that it’s worth getting back to myself. I like it here. In this place of make-believe, where it feels like at any moment she might walk in to ask if I want chai. I know that I am deluding myself, but I also know that I’m remembering more. Yesterday, unprompted, our first phone number sprang to mind with such clarity. Today I can picture an old favorite skirt of hers that I’d forgotten. Black with white and red flowers. And some distant tomorrow I know that I will have to rejoin my life. I have a degree to finish. Friends to reconnect with. Nice days to enjoy. Reality to acknowledge. And I know that the longer I put it off, the worse it will eventually feel. But the cruelty of my medical trauma coinciding with what is already the hardest time of year for me is a lot for one person to confront, and I can only handle so much pain and healing at once. So, I think I’m just going to live here for now. In this in-between place, where she feels familiar and close by and real. 

[learninghowtomissher]

what was losing your mom like?

my mom died five years ago. 

what was that like?

it was kind of like constantly feeling an endless loop of the way your stomach lurches when there isn’t a stair where you expected one. like the unsettledness and fear that creeps in as you walk around your house in the dark, even if it’s the place you know best in the light. like the sharp pain, then nothing, then throbbing awareness that demands to be felt when you get a paper cut. it’s a little like the betrayal of your favorite food burning your tongue. like an underwhelming series finale to a TV show that raised you--so much less than it deserved. like the frustration when you get up, return to your seat, and never find your previous level of comfort. like leaving a movie theatre during the day and realizing you were more at home in the quiet, cold darkness. like the panic of seeing something start to fall, and the helplessness of not being able to catch it before it breaks on the hard ground. like the panic of realizing you’re falling and the helplessness of not being able to catch yourself before you break on the hard ground. 

actually, it’s a lot like you’re in an airport. 

the person you love most in the entire world has a flight to catch. you’re there to see them off and wish them safe travels, but you aren’t going with them. and you don’t exactly know where they’re going or why they have to leave you, just that they are. 

they print their boarding pass, and like a diagnosis it makes things real. they have no bags to check--something about how they won’t need them where they’re going. it’s a one way ticket. there’s an escalator ride in which you talk about everything except what you should. anything to preserve some semblance of normalcy. 

hospice is the tear-filled goodbye and hug that feels impossible to break away from as you stand on the precipice of the security line. eventually, somehow, you retract your intertwined arms and nod reassuringly - more to yourself than to them - as they begin to step away from you. you’re happy they finally get to go, but never so happy that you’re not also absolutely devastated. you wish they could stay. they wish they could stay. 

and that was it, that was goodbye. that can’t possibly be it. that can’t be all you get. your lungs are burning, and your lips are wet with words you meant to say, and it feels like you’re being ripped into pieces. each fibre of your being aches with a need to chase after them, hold on, keep them here. but their shoes are off, and they’re walking towards the x-ray scanner, and they aren’t yours to hold onto anymore. they glance back, and your breath catches in your throat. maybe they’ll change their mind. maybe they’ll come back. they would if they could. they tear their gaze away, and take your heart with them. they turn a corner, too quickly and too slowly, and they are gone. 

and the airport, busy as always, buzzes and whirls around you. there are business trips, and family vacations, and homecomings. there are so many people, everywhere, all around you. there is so much motion you feel nauseous, and it threatens to swallow you up. there is the hum of ceaseless conversation dancing around you, distorted by the deafening silence of your loneliness, your loss. there is so much life happening around you. 

and then it’s been five years, and you’re still standing in the airport. 

[learninghowtomissher]

I wish I was sad today. (3/26/16, 19:28)

Alternatively titled: The ugly, honest answer to ‘how are you doing today, Leemah?’ 

As some of you may know, it has become a bit of a personal tradition for me to write something each year on March 26th in honor of my mom. More specifically, in honor of her dying. (On a scale of 1 to Morticia Addams, how morbid is that?) Usually it goes something like this: Me, sitting alone in the family room late on March 25th, eating soup, listening to Sara Bareilles, crying, and pouring my bleeding heart out into my moleskin journal. This year has been different. On the night of March 25th, I was dancing next to some of my best friends and singing along happily to a Rachel Platten concert at the Ogden in Denver. Sure, ‘Superman’ and ‘Fight Song’ tugged at my heartstrings, but for the most part my mom was in my heart but not on my mind. I was happy. 

Today I got back to Omaha. On her last birthday, my mom and two of her friends got lunch from Mother India. Ever eager to take up traditions, I’ve gone to that same restaurant with a slightly varying group of people on the anniversary of her death each year. So today, as always, I went to Mother India. But today, I ate my lamb out of hunger and guilt... for not being sad last night? I don’t know. For something. I made polite conversation with three of my very favorite people, and then I left. I got home, turned on HGTV, and took a nap. When I woke up, I pulled out a notebook and stared blankly at the equally blank pages. Instead of feeling the usual bubbling over of emotions and thoughts and words that normally precede this post, I felt like I do when I’ve procrastinated an assignment and am just finally opening up a new document in Microsoft Word. See, normally this is the part where I cry and cry and cry and string together some sentences--equal parts honest, tragic, and poetic. And today? Well, I’m just not in the mood. However, before you get your hopes up that this is all leading up to a big reveal that I’m the new poster child for healing, happiness, and reaching some sort of inner-peace (whatever the hell that means), let me be clear: I’m not so sad today, but I am definitely not happy. Bluntly stated, I’m just pissed off. And frustrated. And jealous. And tired. So, so tired. 

Here’s the thing- when you’re 16 and your mom dies of cancer, everyone acknowledges your right (and seeming responsibility) to be sad. You, your friends, your family, the trained professionals, the internet, and the little voice in your head certainly don’t know how to cope with such heartbreaking tragedy, but at least you go in knowing you’ll be sad. What no one prepares you for is the anger-- the feeling of being unfairly stripped of the normalcy that everyone else’s life offered them. Yeah, sure, it’s one of the widely observed ‘5 stages of grief’, but no one ever seems to highlight the fact that eventually you’re going to be so absolutely enraged at the reality of your life that you dig your nails into your palm to the point of drawing blood. The pain of it all starts to dull over time, and the sadness moves to the back-burner more and more frequently as you grow up, but you are always mad. Always bitter. Always a breath away from cursing the world for moving on, and for doing this to you. Always a setback away from letting the frustration convince you to give up. 

I haven’t felt like crying once today. You know what I have felt like doing? Throwing something. Anything. Books. Plates. A punch or two, if I found a suitable target. It isn’t, as one might expect, a blind rage. It’s a simmering anger that waits quietly just out of mind and then seeps into my otherwise level-headed thoughts, unprovoked and unwelcome. And then suddenly the man on Tiny House Hunters has become my sworn enemy because he doesn’t like the cabinetry option that his wife and I prefer. 

I’ve been sad about my mom for four years, and another few before that as I watched her wither away into the unrecognizable figure that we draped in holy white cloth before her burial. (Okay, I’m crying now.) I know that I’ve been sad. I expected to be sad. Everyone knows I’ve been sad--I’m not one to hide it well. Everyone expected me to be sad. But I’ve also been really fucking pissed off for four years, and I don’t think I realized it entirely until today. I’m sad, of course. I will always be sad. This will always hurt. I will never, ever, ever get passed the shock of realizing I’ll never see my mom again. I will be 30, think of her kind eyes, and suddenly feel like my lungs are too big for my ribcage. I will feel the stabbing knives that come with jumping into icy water every time a new acquaintance asks me about my parents. I will feel a wave of hopelessness and, frankly, embarrassment wash over me whenever I have to specify that my emergency contact is a legal guardian and not a parent. But today, at the root of everything, where there is normally a pocket of sadness, there is instead a ball of white hot anger set firmly in my chest. 

What are you so mad about, Leem? OH- I’m so glad you asked!

I’m mad that my mom is dead. Obviously. 

I’m mad that she fought so goddamn hard to live to see me graduate high school, but died before the end of my junior year. 

I’m mad that my mom wasn’t there to help me decide between colleges, majors, or greek houses.

I’m mad that I don’t know if she’s disappointed in me for not staying pre-med.

I’m really, really, REALLY mad that she died before I ever uttered the words “ASUN” or “Elevate” or “student body president” 

I’m mad I couldn’t call her when I got into NHRI, or when I was chosen for Dance Marathon Exec, or when I got tapped into Mortar Board and later elected president.

I’m mad she didn’t get to know Ellie, Riley, and Carly in the context of best friends, sisters, soulmates, future bridesmaids.

I’m mad she never got to witness my excitement over finding role models in college like Nick, Jeff, Erin, Grant, Shelby, and Thien. Also, that she never got to see the way they motivate me to work my hardest, the way she used to. 

I’m mad that losing my mom has made me harder to know, understand, befriend, and love. I’m mad that in college I have met people like Conner, Claire, Maddy, Sadie, Liv, Daniel, Stets, and Spence who made the effort anyways, and she won’t get to meet them. 

I’m mad that she didn’t get to see Hailey, Vanessa, Alycia, Katie, Emily, Alex, and Mawhiney stick around for all these years. 

I’m mad that she isn’t here to see that Donna, Coyner, Kay, Ruth, PJ, John, Keith, Barb, Todd, and so many others are looking out for me.

I’m mad that I couldn’t call her in angry, disappointed tears after the run-off.

I’m mad that she won’t get to come to Ivy Day.

I’m mad she can’t go with me to My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.

I’m mad that I can’t ask her if she’s #WithHer or #FeelintheBern.

I’m mad she wasn’t sitting there next to me squealing when our boy Leo finally won his Oscar.

I’m mad that she won’t be at my college graduation.

I’m mad that if (fingers crossed) I find a man I want to spend the rest of my life with, she will never meet him. 

I’m mad that she won’t be at our wedding. 

I’m mad that she won’t ever hold any children I have--her legacy. 

I’m mad that if I don’t pay attention, I talk about her in the present tense. 

I’m mad that if I drive absent-mindedly, sometimes I end up at our old house. 

I’m mad that I wake up some mornings and forget she’s gone, only to have the realization break my heart all over again. 

I’m mad that there is no sense or end to this anger. 

I’m mad that I have nothing to do with this anger, and nowhere to put it. That is perhaps the worst part. I’m not mad at my mom. I’m not mad at the doctors. I’m not mad at some potential deity j chillin’ up there in the cosmos. I’m not mad at the people trying to understand and to help me. I’m not mad at myself. I’m just mad. At everything and at nothing, all at once.

When I was little, my mom used to paraphrase conventional Buddhist wisdoms at me. If I was mad, she would say, “Anger is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person.” If I was too worked up, she would tell me to write a letter to the source of my anger, or go solve some algebraic equations. I wasn’t feeling like solving for “x” today, so here we are--me, sitting alone upstairs, listening to Zayn’s new album, eating sour patch watermelon, writing this letter to no one. 

If losing my mom has taught me anything, it has taught me that feelings like happiness and sadness can very much be experienced at the same time. Likewise, acceptance and anger can (and do) inhabit my heart all at once, creating one hell of a tumultuous battle that I consistently fear will escape out of me in vicious words that I don’t mean and quickly regret. As the cool breeze of calm flows unsuspectingly into the spitting fires of rage that lick at the heels of my every waking moment, I am reminded of a (very overused but still beautiful) line in a poem about suddenly understanding why storms are named after people. 

It is with deep sincerity that I offer you reading this an apology. I’m sorry that this year I didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t deliver sweeter sentiments. But this is the honest and ugly truth. I’m mad as hell. Healing is a weird thing. I can feel it taking away some of the hurt, but some of my softness with it. It isn’t a trade-off I ever agreed to. These callouses and rough edges are forming to preserve what little innocence and warmth has survived in me up to this point, but I don’t have to like it. 

I’m mad that I’m not as sad today. 

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.” - Stephen Chbosky // The Perks of Being a Wallflower

[learninghowtomissher]

To My Past Selves (3/26/15, 1:54AM)

A/N: To me, from me. Also to you, if you so please. I didn’t proof read these. Sorry ‘bout it. 3 years. Fuck.

To my 19 year old self:  Today will hurt. Today always hurts. From the roots of your hair, to the tips of your toes, to the corners of your soul… today will hurt. Let it hurt. Let the wind in the trees at the cemetery brush across your skin and remember your mom’s hands — Doctor’s hands, strong and steady — checking you over each and every time you fell down. Let the wind push your body the way your mom pushed you to try new things, even though it terrified her. You were, are, and always will be her proudest moments and most prized possession. Let the sun warm you and remember each time her body was next to yours; a provider of security and a presence to keep you anchored. (Don’t remember the last time your body touched hers… in the hospice room as you held her close and kissed her and cradled her and cried infinite apologies followed by even more I love you’s to ears that could no longer hear them.) She is the wind, and she is the sun. She is everywhere. She is in everything. She is in you. 

To my 18 year old self:  So college, huh? It is good, but it is so wrong. Your RA seems nice, but your mom wasn’t there to help move you into your dorm. You’re making friends, but they’ll never meet her. (How can they truly know you if they never know her?) You get into something called FCLA, but you can’t tell your mom and hear her say that she /so/ proud of you. (You tell Donna and Coyner, and they love you, and you love them, and they’re beaming with pride, and it’s almost enough. Almost.) You’re starting to tell the difference between fast friends, and lasting friends, but every time someone asks about your family you feel like maybe you’d rather have shallow relationships with these new people. (You’ll get past it. Kind of. Not really. You’ll TRY.) You’ll apply for a mentoring program called NHRI and angrily cross out ‘Parent’ on the form handed to you before your interview, instead writing ‘Guardian’ in its place. (You love Donna and Coyner, but they’re not your mom. It’s insensitive and non-inclusive language, anyways. You’re not bitter.) You’ll do fine for your freshman year — GREAT by some people’s measures — but it won’t feel like it’s worth anything. It is. Your education is worth everything. Your mom didn’t try her hardest to hold on until your high school graduation for nothing. (She missed it by 14 months.)

To my 17 year old self: This is your first full year of life without your mom. You cry every single day. Sometimes silent tears, sometimes sobs that are ripped from your chest so forcefully they feel stolen. To be fair, you’ve always been a crier, but it’s a much different experience when it happens without the woman who held you each time, and felt your hurt as deeply as you did.  You graduate high school and you don’t cry when they call your name, or when your family takes turns hugging you, and you think you might get through a day - THIS MONUMENTAL DAY, OF ALL DAYS — without crying. But then you drive yourself home, and “That’s The Way It Is” is playing on 104.5. You remember years and year’s worth of car rides singing along to Celine Dion, harmonizing with your favorite person in the whole world. Maybe part of you feels like your mom is there with you, but more of you feels empty and alone, and that’s what triggers an unbelievable yet inevitable onslaught of tears. The subsequent blurred vision almost causes you to crash your car. (You hurt so much that a part of you wishes you /did/ crash.)

To my 16 year old self:  This is the worst year of your life. It still hurts too much to write about. 

To my 15 year old self:  You’re a sophomore in high school and you find nothing embarassing about the fact that you tuck your mom into bed every night — kissing her forehead, saying goodnight, and reminding her that you love her more than anyone or anything else. Your 19-year-old self is so proud of you for that. Since mom passed away, 19-year-old you has started a tradition of kissing her necklace and whispering those same sentiments into the dark each night before bed, but there is no one to say it back. She usually cries at this point. 

To my 14 year old self:  Your mom tells you she might be sick as she drops you off at school. Don’t blame her. She knows you better than you know yourself, and this was the right way for her to bring it up. This is the beginning of the end. How could you have known? 

To my 13 year old self:  Welcome to your teenage years. Everyone keeps telling you that this will be a crazy time in your life. They also say that you’ll be dramatic and moody, and get so fed up with your mom that you’ll ‘just wanna kill her!’ (You’ll probably shout something to this effect before slamming a door or two. But a couple hours later you will poke your head into her room, apologize, and crawl into bed with her. The joke’s on you. Cancer will kill her instead.)

To my 12 year old self:  During your prolonged stay in London, there will be a period where your mom will leave you with your aunts, uncle, and cousins, in order to attend to some things in Omaha. You miss her so much that you can barely eat. When she gets back, and you finally get to hug her again, you thank your lucky stars that you have so much time left with her. If only. 

To my 11 year old self:  You graduate from elementary school and your mom is glowing. She says she is even more excited to see you graduate high school and college, and you are, too, because you’re pretty sure you could live off of the love and pride shining in her eyes as you show her your diploma. She won’t make it to your high school graudation, and you’ll hardly make it through the day. 

To my 10 year old self:  Your 5th grade teacher stupidly doesn’t recommend you for 6th grade Pre-Algebra. Your mom calls the Superintendent of the school district and gets your name on the list for the placement test. You pass with flying colors. You recognize that your mom will fight for you. Soon you will have to fight for yourself. It’s not fair, and it’s scary, but you have the best possible teacher. 

To my 9 year old self:  You and your mom move out of your dream house. You don’t have the money for it anymore. The world is cruel and no one wants to hire an Afghan Muslim in post-9/11 America, especially in Nebraska. She didn’t explain this to you back when she first stopped working at the Med Center, but she explains it now. This marks the beginning of your awareness of, and battle with, racism and islamophobia. Your 19-year-old self is sorry to inform you that she continutes to fight this battle every single day. 

To my 8 year old self:  You have a solo in the school’s music program. Your mom has a work conference in Las Vegas. But somehow, when the concert is over, there is your mom. She left the convention early, caught a flight home, and snuck into the gym just in time for your song. You cry happy tears because you understand that she will do anything for you. That never changes, even when everything else does. 

To my 7 year old self: Your mom gets frustrated calls from your 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Streff, every day for the first two weeks of school. “Leemah is disruptive in class, and it’s distracting to her peers.” Your mom doesn’t yell or punish you. She says the teacher will have to figure you out eventually, and offers a knowing smile that reminds you that your mom has had you figured out since the day you were born. A few days later, Mrs. Streff calls your mom down for an after school meeting. You think for sure you’re in trouble this time, but instead, your teacher apologizes to your mom. She says something about how she should have realized you were only acting out because you were bored after finishing the material so much faster than everyone else. Your mom winks and you and says, “That’s my girl.” It is the best title you will ever have. 

To my 6 year old self:  One day in the first grade, Mr. Moore turns on the TV. You can’t process the images at this age, but you can tell it’s a plane hitting a building. Mr. Moore has sons in New York City, and it’s the first time you see a man cry. The whole thing sets you on edge. When your mom picks you up from Club 66 that night, she holds you a little closer, and lays with you a little longer before bed. You don’t know why, but you aren’t complaining. You are never safer than when you are in her arms. 

To my 5 year old self:  You’ve been in daycare most of your life, so kindergarten isn’t a huge change in routine for you. You love learning new things in school, but you love when your mom comes to get you even more.  You get a doctor’s set for your birthday, and you scream with glee in the middle of Chuck E. Cheese. You want to be a doctor, so that you can be just like your momma. 

To my 4 year old self:  On October 17, 1999, you write out the alphabet for the first time all by yourself. Your mom saves the paper, adds a note about how proud she is, and puts it in a binder that she will eventually stuff full of your accomplishments. You find this note late one night after she’s died, and you cry more than you thought was possible. She is so proud of you. 

To my 3 year old self: Experts say we don’t have memories from our lives at 3 years of age. They’re probably right. All the same, I know you are the most adored and cared for little girl from any time or any place. I’m sure your mom makes sure you know it, too. 

To my 2 year old self:  Your mom leaves your abusive and alcoholic father to ensure you have a safe, healthy, and happy life. It’s just the two of you, and it’s more than enough. She is the best Dad anyone could hope for. 

To my 1 year old self:  You are the luckiest person in the whole world. You think your mom is the best one out there. You are correct. 

To me, on the day I was born:  Leemah Nasrati; 6 lbs. 8 oz.; 21 in. long. Born to doting mother Sania Wali on July 20, 1995 at 1:50 AM on the fourth floor of Clarkson Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.  You are on day one of 6,094 with your mother. She will fill each moment with enough happiness to last long after she is gone. You will need it. She will be taken from you far too soon. But welcome to the world, baby me. You are so loved. 

To my mom, today and every day:  I miss you. I wish you were here more than anything in the entire world. Thank you for everything. I am so unbelievably proud to be your daughter. I love you. 

[learninghowtomissher]

It's one of those nights where I just keep getting hit over and over with the fact that my mom is dead and that I'll never see her again. I will never love anyone as much as I loved, love, and always will love her, and I never told her. And my chest feels like I could just collapse from how much grief has settled upon it tonight. Though I suppose the grief is always present... but tonight, the distractions are not. I just want to cry and lay next to my mom on her bed with her sea foam green sheets with white polka dots and hug her for the rest of time and tell her I love her and never do anything else and I don't know how to survive knowing that I can't do that no matter how painfully and desperately I ache for it. Everything hurts and time has healed nothing. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

[learninghowtomissher]

Happy Birthday, Mom! (9/6/14, 15:48)

Author’s Note: If you read my previous post on here, you’re probably very skeptical about reading another one of these. BUT I promise this one isn’t as sad. I wouldn’t necessarily call it happy, but you won’t cry. Probably. Unless you’re a very emotional and weepy person like myself. (If that is the case we should be friends and discuss how even though the Twilight movies weren’t all that spectacular, I cried during the end of the last film when they had the montage of every actor to appear in the movies, and if you had a similar experience).  Also I cuss again, but not as much. You’ve been warned. A song suggestion for this reading experience: Hero by Family of the Year. Just ‘cause I like it a lot.

  It’s my mom’s birthday, and so I’m gonna tell you a story about her.

  When I was little, and my mom still worked at the Med Center, she would go on frequent trips to conferences in places like St. Paul, or Vegas, or Los Angeles. As the relatively spoiled only child and frequently proclaimed center of her universe that I was, I understandably expected gifts upon her return (though I should say, seeing her there to pick me up from Club 66 on the nights she got back instead of whoever I was staying with while she was out of town was always the best part). One trip, towards the end of her time with that job, brought back something called ‘Mama’s Biscotti’.

  My mom was a stickler for ‘everything in moderation’, and so months down the road, there was still a decent stock of Mama’s Biscotti sitting on top of our refrigerator.  One day – and I cannot tell you what day – I was reading a book (probably Harry Potter, let’s be real), and thought to myself ‘I could really go for some biscotti right now’. My mom’s door was only open a crack, and I knew which floor boards creaked, so my odds of getting to the kitchen and back without reprimand were pretty solid. I realize now that I forgot to tell you the most important part of Mama’s Biscotti. Inside every individually wrapped piece, there was a little card, similar to a fortune from a fortune cookie, that said “Mama Says: [insert conventional wisdom of your choice]”.  I usually was too busy stuffing my face with biscotti goodness to read it until much later, but for some reason this cheesy set of words gave me pause. It read, “Mama Says: “Everything has it’s beauty, but not everyone sees it.” It is, admittedly, not all that profound, and is probably more likely to be a quote displayed on a motivational coffee mug than a quote to shape a person’s entire life, but shape my life it did.  Maybe it’s because it sounded so like something my mama would say. With that thought in my mind, and a new outlook on my elementary school life, I set out to go tell said mama all about my life changing experience. I even decided to give her the biscotti because I was a much more mature person ever since reading that quote two minutes prior, and I was pretty sure mature people shared their biscotti with their mothers.

  After sock-sliding my way down the hallway to her room, I dramatically swung her door open expecting to impress her with my newfound wisdom. Instead, I froze, and kind of sort of felt like my entire world had shifted off its axis.

  I can’t tell you how old I was at the time despite how detailed my memories of the day are, or how long it had been since she’d gotten back from her trip, but I can tell you that – in retrospect - she had probably lost her job, or knew it was coming, at this point. If that was the case, then she definitely knew we were going to lose our house- her dream house, the one she’d spent years hunting for, and thousands of dollars remodeling, and countless hours imagining me growing up in.  It was the crowning point of her realization of the American dream™ (which is a bunch of bullshit, but we can discuss the messages of The Great Gatsby another time).  And she was seeing all of it crumble before her eyes. (Due, in no small part, to the fact that she was an Afghan Muslim, and 9/11’s perpetrators (a group of sad excuses for devout practitioners of a religion that would never, ever under any circumstances condone their actions) had led Americans to believe that Islam was a religion of terror when it is in fact a religion centered on peace and health. But it’s whatever.)

  Knowing all of this now, I shouldn’t have been so surprised by the sight I was met with when I burst into her room.  She was sitting in her bed, surrounded by her blankets, Qur’an in front of her… crying.  I had never seen my mom cry before, and it literally felt like my world was ending.  She immediately perked up when she saw me (I’m not kidding when I say I was the center of her universe, and she was the center of mine), tears quickly subsiding as she smiled and patted the space in front of her on the bed. With the memory of her crying quickly pushed from my mind, I eagerly climbed up into my usual spot and told her that I had brought her a present. I brought my hands out from around my back and handed her the quote, and the biscotti. I remember that she cried again when she read it, but that her tears were much less bothersome to me then.

  She always told people that story; praising me as her sweet and thoughtful little girl, and for the rest of our life together we bought anything and everything we saw emblazoned with the quote.  When I came home from school and complained that everyone had contacts and my glasses made me an ugly nerd that no one would want to be friends with she replied with what we’d claimed as ‘our quote’.  When I was upset about my lack of love life, and insecure over the fact that all of my friends seemed to have boyfriends or girlfriends, she sat me down in front of a mirror and prompted me to say it to my reflection.  When she told me she was sick and wanted to soften the blow, she went to the store and brought me home a journal with a picture of two birds on the cover and in gold writing those same treasured words.  When she made the decision to shave her head before chemo could take her hair from her and cried at the aftermath, I said the words right back to her.  And today, as I celebrate another of her birthdays without her, I would like to share those words with you all.  I only ask that if you choose to carry them with you, you also carry some of my mom’s spirit: bold in times of injustice, soft and sweet in times of comfort and reflection, intelligent, commanding, as ever-changing as anything else in this life, but always, always, always beautiful.

  Happy birthday, mom.

[learninghowtomissher]

Two Years (3/26/14, 1:46 AM)

Warning: I cuss a lot in this, and I talk about death- neither of those should be surprising in the slightest, but consider yourself warned, I guess. You know, it’s funny. I’ve been planning to write something to post today for the past couple of months, and I kept starting things and reading them back and realizing how stupid, and insignificant it all seemed. How could a few typed words sum up an entire lifetime? But I’ve realized something, and it is a realization I wish I could un-realize, or whatever the technical term may be: these words are only 6,094 days’ worth. I had exactly 6,094 days with my mom, from my birth to her death. 16 years, 8 months, 6 days. Hardly the lifetime I had been worried about fitting into whatever I wrote. The other glaring problem with this plan is that I don’t know what to say about it, honestly. I just felt like I needed to say something, or else I was going to lose my mind. It’s true what they say, you can only internalize things for so long before they suddenly make their own way out of you, out of your soul, and leave their horrible mark on everything in their path. I guess, in a way, this is me trying to avoid that- hoping that if I sit down and pretend this is all some creative writing assignment that I’ll probably turn in late because we have ‘soft deadlines’ (Sorry, Hodgson), and listen to an iTunes play list that definitely is definitely is not titled ‘Mom’ (now playing: Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson- I’ll try, Ingrid, but no promises), I’ll be able to somehow control or minimize the damage that is sure to come when a person who’s been desperately trying to keep it together for so long finally stops trying. As you may have noticed, another side effect of coming unraveled is that the ability to not write in run-on sentences becomes as lost to you as anything. All I can think to say is that I’m sad. I’m just so unbearably sad, and I don’t now how to go on like this. It all hurts so badly. And I know I can do it, I know I can get through it, because that’s all I’ve been doing for the last two years of my life but Jesus freaking Christ I really don’t know how. I, and everyone I’ve every met in this position, always say it hurts, but that’s not even the right way to phrase it. It aches- physically, emotionally, mentally. It’s this dulled, all encompassing, never-ending ache that reminds you that you’ll never be whole again, and though dull might seem like a good thing at first, I assure you that it is not. When you get a jerk in your neck, or you stub your toe, there is this big moment of “oh, shit, that really hurt”, and then, eventually, you feel fine again. You get to a point where you can’t quite remember how the pain burned in your neck and down your back, or how you could feel your pulse throbbing in your big toe. I don’t get that. I don’t get that feeling. I don’t get that relief. I don’t get that feeling of being fine again. I don’t feel fine. I haven’t felt fine since, at the very latest, March 26th, 2012 on the drive to school when Donna’s phone rang and I just knew. I knew she was gone. 16 years. 6,094 days. That’s what I got with her. And then I wasn’t going to school anymore, I was going to the hospice house, and isn’t that just the story of it all? Everyone off worrying about their ACT scores, and me worrying about where I’d end up once my mother- the doctor, the protégé of medicine amongst her peers, eventually succumbed to a disease I am sure she once learned about as she sat at her desk in Kabul. That’s not to say anything against the trials and tribulations of the ‘average’ (whatever that means) high school students because fuck they expect a lot from kids at that age, but it’s such a heavy thing to lose your mom. Nothing should be that heavy at 16. And then, before I could make sense of it, I was the one picking up the pieces and reminding people how to keep their shit together. Reminding everyone, as I stepped into the role of bearer of the worst possible kind of news, over and over and over again until I was sure that my heart would break under the heaviness of peoples’ reactions weighing it down. And then I was back in that god forsaken hospice room, surrounded by so many of the things that had been staples and constants in the many houses I had grown up in, saying goodbye to a woman with a corpse small enough to be mistaken for a child’s and a face that was hardly comparable to the one I had grown up with. I told myself I would give myself five seconds of weakness, because I had heard Jack Shepherd say it worked in LOST. I started to cry, and it was immediately clear that five seconds wouldn’t be enough. Five minutes wouldn’t be enough, nor would five hours, or five weeks, months, years… lifetimes. I remember collapsing onto the bed, so sure that if I apologized enough she would come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not making my bed every day. I’m sorry for always having enough shoes next to the door for an octopus. I’m sorry I didn’t want to learn Farsi when I was little. I’m sorry for every moment of dramatics and teen angst that led me to lie and say I hated you. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good enough daughter to keep you here with me. I still find myself thinking of more apologies. I’m sorry I prioritize FCLA over homework. I’m sorry I don’t have a major. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough to stay pre-med. I’m sorry, mommabear. I’m so sorry. Eventually I got up, stopped crying (no, I don’t know how), and left the room, adamantly refusing to look at the collage of pictures I’d made her. Those were pictures of a different time. A time when she was so big, and I was little, when she was invincible, and I was naïve. A time when, above all else, she was alive, and I didn’t feel dead. And then they took her body. They took it- they took her body, and I was so completely in shock that I didn’t cry. The funeral home loaded my newly deceased mother into the back of a white van, drove off, and I didn’t shed a tear. I think I turned to Natasha and asked if Katie had replied yet, or if she was thirsty, or something as equally ridiculous in retrospect. And then I was at the high school, and the place that had so often been my safe haven was now the scariest place in the whole world, despite the huge amount of love that I was sure to receive upon my arrival at – of course – Mawhiney’s desk. And then Hodgson, ever the hero, called me over to his desk because I looked like I ‘wanted to get out of there’, and that understanding was almost enough to make me break all over again. My armor cracked. My eyes started to sting as they tried valiantly to resist crying. Hodgson saw it, and the genuine concern written across his face was just barely enough to pull me back together. How could I fall apart in front of anyone when they all looked at me like my tears had the power to take the world off its axis? And then it was the funeral. It was an uncommonly hot day for the end of March in Nebraska, especially when I was wearing all black and a hijab. There were more Afghans there than I knew existed in the greater Omaha area, and certainly far more than I’d ever met, but much more important were the innumerable faces I did recognize- friends, family, teachers, counselors, friends’ family, family friends, and everything in between. Someone I didn’t know did the speaking. (I didn’t really cry then either.) And then I was in Rome; a city where people walking past me didn’t know my mom had just died. Still, even with the promise of fresh starts and at least ten other clichés, most of that trip was me trying to avoid having a panic attack in a foreign country because how would I explain to our extremely good-looking tour guide that, No, I’ve never had a panic attack before, but it’s nothing to worry about, I hear they’re relatively normal after your mom dies of pancreatic cancer and less than a week later you’re walking the streets of Italy. And then there was a lot of life that happened but wasn’t truly lived. I went to Nationals for DECA, and I started my senior year of high school, and I went to prom, and I graduated, and I started college, and I turned 17, then 18, and soon 19, and I tried to try my best the whole time, and now I’m here. Here, sitting in the basement of a house much nicer than anything my mom and I could have dreamed of, typing on a laptop I can’t bring myself to change the desktop from the one it had when she was alive, crying and missing her so badly that it feels like I can’t breathe. And I’m okay. Nothing I said in this is meant to be a red flag for a psych evaluation or anything equally appropriate for people who are seriously not okay. I’m okay. I will be okay. But right now I just don’t quite see how I’m going to manage it. Right now all I have is this gaping wound in my chest and it’s like a black hole, slowly pulling in everything good, and right, and happy, leaving me only the pain and grief and despair to feel, until eventually it will swallow me up, too. And then I’ll be that black hole; void, dark, missing my mom, dreading every day that comes but none more so than my 33rd birthday because at that point I will have lived more life without my mom than with her. And yeah that’s all really fucking dramatic, but after the shit-show that has been my life for the past few years, I deserve dramatic. I had 6,094 days with her. According to [my guess at] the average life expectancy for a woman in the United States and the age at which she had me, I should have had something more like 19,000. But 6,094 was where the universe, or the higher power you believe in, or random chance decided I’d had enough, and didn’t get to have my mom anymore (no offense intended, religious folk). She wasn’t at my prom, or my high school graduation, and she didn’t get to help me move into my college dorm. She won’t be at my college graduation, or my wedding. She’ll never meet my husband, or my children, or the friends that I’ve made and will continue to make since her passing. 6,094 days, done, and over, and gone. And I’m sad. I don’t have some uplifting message to end this on, to make you feel better after reading what was probably pretty depressing. That’s it. That’s all there is. I’m sad. Now you’re sad too. Sorry about that. xoxo, Leemah “Every morning, I wake up and forget just for a second that it happened. But once my eyes open, it buries me like a landslide of sharp, sad rocks. Once my eyes open, I'm heavy, like there's too much gravity on my heart.” ― Sarah Ockler, Twenty Boy Summer "There's a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality--there's mercy in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin." -- Christopher Moore

[learninghowtomissher]

7/12/12 (12:17 a.m.)

Anyone who's been in a car with me for five minutes can probably tell you that I love to sing-- loudly. My saving grace is that I can sing well. Anyways, point is, I'm sitting in my room singing 'White Blank Page' by Mumford & Sons (strike one: listening to a song that reminds me of my mommabear), and it's just so... silent. I'm reminded of the Lemony Snicket quote, 'The world is quiet here,' because, well, it is. It is eerily muted, and I keep stopping my singing to listen for my mom's bed frame squeaking from her tossing and turning, or the floor boards creaking under what's left of her body as she moves to the bathroom because chemo is a first class bitch... and there's nothing. And I just feel so empty. She's never going to scold me by using the phrase, 'I love your voice, but it's late.', and she's never going to see me do another concert, or struggle through another song on the guitar. I had a solo at a school concert this year, and it was when my mom's condition wasn't horrific but she still wasn't strong, and so I didn't tell her about it because I didn't want her to feel guilty for not going. But she found out after the fact and she thought I was ashamed of her. I was never ashamed of her. I remember her saying 'This might have been my last chance' and me stubbornly responding with something along the lines of 'That's what you said last month, and the month before that, and before that...' because hey, it was true. But she was right, and now she'll never hear me sing on a stage without 25703109503 other voices, and that kills me. My mom was always harder on me than she should have been -- a fact I can't ignore or excuse no matter how deeply I miss and love her -- but she was still my biggest fan. And for that to be gone is just... soul-crushingly devastating. 

[learninghowtomissher]

7/9/12 (12:48 a.m.)

I turn 17 in 11 days. My mom died when I was 16. I don't want to be 17. My age change is just one more indisputable reminder of the truth of the statement: My mom is dead, and she isn't coming back. I wonder if anyone accurately guesses what this feels like. You know how you watch movies or TV shows and you see a character go through losing a parent, and the actor or actress has to play the part. I always (well, since my mom's passing) wonder what the actor/actress is thinking. How do they imagine their character feels? Because I imagined what this grief would feel like before TFD (Abbreviation I'm going to use for 'that fateful day' because typing out 'the day my mom died' is too much for me to handle. It's pathetic, but true.), and my guesses didn't even register on the grand scope of how much it hurts. It isn't a superficial hurt like loneliness, or even heartbreak. This is an all consuming, bitter, evil, unstoppable force that washes over you in waves you simply can not see coming, and the tide pulls you under and you can't breathe. I feel like I can't breathe. Turning 17 is supposed to be this great thing, a time where you're coming of age (Sound of Music, anyone? My mom loved that movie, but then, who doesn't love Christopher Plummer as Captain Von Trapp?) and choosing schools and determining your future and it's not. Because I can't breathe.