You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2009.
Last night I called my sister in Islamabad and as soon as she heard my voice she started laughing. “I thought it might be you,” she said. “The kids were just talking about you.”
My nephew and three nieces were watching a fairy cartoon and when a rainbow-winged fairy swooped into view they all exclaimed, “She looks like Khala Baraka!”
My sister, eying the slender, white-skinned fairy and seeing an equally beautiful brown-skinned fairy hovering close by, asked, “Why do you think Khala Baraka is like her?”
“Because she is so special!”, said the 8-year-old. “And beautiful!” chimed in the 5-year-old. “She’s pretty,” agreed the 4-year old in her heavy desi accent. “Hum ki khala hai!” gruffed her twin, my nephew.
My sister and I had a good laugh at the little ones. Beauty is not something I’ve ever associated with myself as a brown girl in a fair-skin obsessed Pakistan, but their conversation got me thinking about how beauty and love are intertwined.
When we are very young the most beautiful people in the world are those who love and adore us. That’s before societal measures butt in, whispering how her skin is too dark, or sneering that his body is too fat, and well before the character judgments of adolescence that sweep us away from those who have loved us so long.
I remember my mother’s face being the most beautiful in the world. And then I recall the many years when all I could see were the countless ways I thought she had failed herself and me. If you’re lucky, as I was, that passes. Now, when I look at her I see a face of such radiant love and patience that it takes my breath away.
I think that’s what my nieces and nephews see, for now. The face of love. Oh, how fiercely I have loved my nieces and nephews, particularly my beloved first-born niece. I have reveled in being Khala, I have been solely theirs, belonging to no other child and having none of my own. When they visit I am with them instead of the adults, playing and reading stories, distracted by nothing save fulfilling their desires. They set up beds in my room and we talk into the night and sometimes I wake up to look at them sleeping all tousled, sticky-sweet, and innocent and my heart feels like it will burst with love.
That’s one part of this pregnancy that is bittersweet, for I will no longer be solely theirs, but shared. They’ve each reacted differently to the news, with the eldest immediately offering to move in with us and help with the baby. The second eldest shyly watches me and my growing belly from the corners of her eyes, not sure how to interact with me anymore. And the youngest two are simply amazed at the silliness of babies in bellies at all and prance about the house singing, “There’s a baby in my belly!” before falling over laughing at this very great and ridiculous cosmic joke.
I have loved my four babies so much that sometimes I’ve wondered how anyone could take their place. But as I go through this pregnancy I realize that it’s not a matter of replacement, but of hearts growing to make space for new love.
A blessed Thanksgiving and Eid to you all – may you too be surrounded by faces made perfect and beautiful by radiant love.
The polls for the 6th annual Brass Crescent Awards are open till the 27th! The excellent blog Muslimah Media Watch received three well-deserved nominations. Their editor-in-chief Fatemeh Fakhraie, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow earlier this year, was also interviewed by elan today.
The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center (of “A Common Word Between Us and You” fame) has just released a report: The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World.
Quite a few royals to start off with, but things get interesting after that, with some of my dear friends like Shahed Amanullah and Farhana Khera included, as well as excellent local Bay Area scholars like Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Shaykh Kabir Helminski.
Congratulations you movers and shaykhers!
[One aside: Couldn't they find some women for the cover? And why are women and youth segregated to their own sections like in too many mosques?
Perhaps it's to make them easier to search for, but it also highlights the divisions within the community.]
My dear friend Rachel at Velveteen Rabbi has written a trio of extraordinary posts (1, 2, 3) on her pregnancy, for which I am grateful as she so beautifully articulates what I cannot.
Most often these days I find myself struck speechless by this experience that is both mundane by virtue of being one of the most common experiences in the world, and yet unique in being one that is unfolding in my body for the first time.
My body has been my canvas since 2003. I’ve intimately and often publicly explored my medical condition, its physical horrors and spiritual delights, here. But, now, words no longer seem enough. To have my body be transformed from a source of sorrow and pain for so many years – how can I express that joy and humble gratitude, subhan’Allah?
Though I am rendered mute, tangled, and empty of words, I am also filled. I am a container for growing life, filled with constant gratitude to and remembrance of a Creator who still engages the world today, the One who is actively creating through me as I write.
The last two verses of Sura Baqara (2:285-6) have long been part of my nightly reading and the sentence, “We hear and obey, Your forgiveness O our Lord, to You is the becoming!” is one I’m fascinated with.
Alternately translated as “with You is all journey’s end”, “to You is the end of all journeys”, or “unto You is the journeying”, the phrase “the becoming” is the one that sticks in my mind like a burr, causing me to poke and wonder at it.
During this pregnancy, I’ve thought a lot about the idea of becoming. The infant resides for 9 months in a womb of nurturing darkness without being able to imagine the light that is to come, the world in which it will become human. The pregnant woman is in a state of becoming – a state of transition between being just herself and being the mother of a child. The man, woman, and baby are all three on this bridge of becoming, together – toward family, fatherhood, motherhood, toward the more than the sum of our parts that lies ahead.
This life is a series of thresholds or journeys of becoming something greater than we were – more compassionate, more filled with beauty and excellence, more giving and gracious. We move from being children to adults, from being single, to marrying, to having children, and then grandchildren. Some of us go through each of these phases, and some of us grow on other paths and in other ways , but we all finally face the threshold of death, after which we will become something we can barely imagine now.
Just as a seed must be cracked open to fulfill its potential, to become the more it was meant to be, my body too will be wrenched opened so that I can cross over the threshold into the unknown territory of motherhood.
I slipped on the stairs yesterday around 11 am & hurt my lower back. Initially I felt fine and the baby was be-bopping around so the nurse I called said not to worry, but to hydrate & rest.
But later that evening, for six hours I felt almost no movement at all. I rubbed oil on my belly in my nightly ritual, and Basil curled his large, warm palms there and talked to the baby. Usually, the baby responds to both of us, but this time there was nothing. I called the doctor and she asked us to come in immediately for a doppler/ultrasound to make sure everything was OK.
It was so surreal being in the same hospital where I’d been admitted for my many exacerbations over the past 6 years, but being there for a different, though still frightening, reason this time.
They did the Doppler soon after we got there in the middle of the night, and the heartbeat was strong so I relaxed a bit after hearing the soothing whoosh-whoosh, and watched Basil’s face melt as he heard it for the first time. But then they took a good 1.5 hours to come back for the ultrasound.
While waiting, I thought about how this was our first experience of being parents, and of being fearful for our child. The pregnancy has been a joy so far alhamdolillah, but last night made me think of the responsibilities coming our way too. It made me remember all of those nights that our parents stayed up with us when we were sick, or took us to the hospital for emergencies and how they must have felt, hearts in throats, every fiber of their beings praying for their child to be well.
The doctor finally came in to do the ultrasound and seeing Bean on the screen and knowing s/he was OK, I was flooded with relief and gratitude to God. She tried to get Bean’s profile shot but, as usual, the lil rascal covered his/her face and scrunched away. So she printed out ultrasound shots of the legs and arms instead, and holding those I was overcome by tenderness at their skinny, tiny, fragile perfection, subhan’Allah.
This little being, at 24 weeks old already has my heart and soul wound around his/her tiny finger. Those two hours at the hospital last night were a small taste of what it means to be a parent, to forever have a part of your heart walking around outside your body, so beautiful, independent, and yet vulnerable at the same time.
It filled me with gratitude for all those nights and days of sweet tender care that our parents provided for us growing up (and continue to provide even now), that will enable both of us to provide for our child in turn, insh’Allah.
Recent Comments