Still Layla

If only one thing I learned. Is that life goes on literally. It does not stop for you and for anyone. You learn to grieve while still going on and about with your life.

I had moments where my work piled up for both my flower shop and hair salon. I would try to start the conversation with: sorry but mom died in May. Thinking that will buy me some time, but no, business is business. And that needs a metal heart who cannot relay on emotional dilemmas. After the "oh my condolences" the conversation will continue about work.

It blessed me honestly to be immersed in the things I love for that it took my mind away from my deep longing to mama's thoughts.

However, as life became good to me, I wish I could tell mama how everything is going. I keep dreaming of her lucid dreams that makes me think she knows what I'm doing. And I can think is that she is closer to me when she is an angel rather than when she was a human being.

19th July 2017 

50 days later

June 24th 2017

The day it fully hit me, she is gone for good. I fought all the triggers, all the remarks & thoughts that she is not here anymore.

I made it for 50 days  after her death not crying, whispering in everyone's ears that what happened was for her own best. I forgot to whisper that I lost a listening ear, a non- judgmental soul who laughed, joked and talked with me for 30 years.

Celebrating a shadow

Happy birthday mama. Today you would've been 57 years old. I miss takeing care of you. I miss driving you to chemo on Wednesday. To removing your chemo pump on Friday, to taking you breakfast on Sunday, to walking in Central Park, to feeding ducks with Mohamed, to grocery shopping in Fairway. To sharing tuna melt in Columbus circle & chamomile tea in Alice's tea cup.

On the 7th day of your departure, I found myself ready to open the tv, I put on Friends, ordered pizza, I thought Ok let's be normal again, As I sat down I felt the emptiness of your presence. I no longer can remind you to take your pills, to check your blood sugar or ask you if you have pain every 5 minutes. I was suddenly all free & I did not like it. My tears ran down my face warm and heavy. You are free too. You are pain free.

#pancriatic
#cancer 

Translating Written Fate

When I first found out mama has cancer, I thought yep that's my curse, god taking away my most favorite thing in the world, I must have been such a bad person. I started looking for the things I did wrong for me to deserve this. 

As I walked down the journey with her in every second, I saw doors opening, souls connecting, gratefulness was at its best. I wondered where is my curse? This actually feels good. Its making me love more, forgive more, worry less. This brought the best of me. As the ladies at the funeral house put on the protective plastic apron and gloves & asked me to start washing her. I knew at that moment why mama always wanted to look strong infront of us؛ her children. I never want my kids to see me like that. Its just so heart breaking and makes you dead to your core. I hear of people screaming and crying for her loss and all I think; but they haven't seen her last days. The most horrible days of our life. 

Things became clearer everyday. I loved her chemo infusions in New York,  while we waited every other Wednesday for her blood test to come out we would sneak to Pret-a-manager next door for quick breakfast, then we are back for chemo. Chemo was a good thing, it gave her a chance to live longer. It angers me the stereo type of government conspiracies about chemo, those who say it most probably never had a cancer patient in the family so they don't know how it works. I always wished in my heart that I can shush anyone telling me chemo was a lie. 

I loved the long drives between Abu Dhabi & Alain 

Believe the doctors, believe the science. God made us in this earth to educate ourselves. He has put this knowledge in doctors for us to reason things. And balance between faith and science. 

Mama always made a joke about anything she saw. I get that from her. I like to imitate and make voices, that funny spark to any conversation. We were very easy going with the people around us. 

My mom is a precious memory, I will protect it deep inside my heart where I control what I see and I feel. This is my mom, my thoughts and my memories. 

To me you are a song I don't know how to sing 

A poem I don't know how to read. 

That Girl with a Broken Arm

The idea is sinking in, and it freaks me out. 

How can I live after you!? Who will I tell my daily stories, who will listen to my vents? 

Who shall I say their jokes after them? 

You're leaving me with memories. And I need more. I need more of you. Of your support and love and most of all acceptance. 

I'm very selfish right now. Can you blame me mama? 

Salam, my name is Layla. Shalom, my name is Lilly

We met in between the corridors of New York Presbatryan hospital in cold February 2017. Both of us emerging into our 30's taking care of our mama's who both battle cancer. And to add to the coincidence the same type.

I saw a mirror image of myself standing in front of me. At the same time we were so different, language, identity & faith. Yet, I felt so connected to her.

How could the universe be so powerful, so gentle.

I felt it was telling me: hey you are not alone here! A girl like you is doing the same thing.


.A little thought I wrote as a a tribute to Lilly's mom who passed away on 28.02.2017 

a Year in a flash

2016.

Hubby poured me Green tea, my ideas started coming to me as I watched the steam coming off the mug and relaxed in front of my screen.

I can hear him watching House of Cards season 4 in the background. When Francis Underwood utters his senctences: the worst thing about common sense is that its common.

I am two week away from packing my suite cases and flying to my home, a place that is far from home, but holds the person who will always hold me to the ground, mom.

She is still in NYC a city I have always loved and admired, and secretly wished I could live in my teen years. A year ago, we packed both of us and flew to a 2 bedroom apartment in Upper West Side. Nothing was ever planned. God planned everything to us literally. We quickly blended in that neighborhood as if we lived their our whole life.

We familiarized ourselves with the surrounding, a doorman, a Starbucks right around the corner, A UPS Store for my quick runs to print things for my floweshop, and a line up of grocery stores with all sort of Kales I could remember names for.

When I left, I did not want to say goodbye to anyway. I just left, sent a msg while I was about to buckle my plane seat belt and switched off my phone. I stayed away for good. I still do not know what happened to me.

But I needed solitude. I needed to swallow what came my way rushing me to start living again.

I stop typing for a second, take a sip of that tea. return it back and type this.


Fast forwarding my life to today. I love what I have gained from this experience. And I am very grateful that I went through it early in my life. For it showed me the true colors of what is worth your time.

After being a crying baby for years and years, I find myself thinking three times before drifting a tear. they are waste of my energy and my thoughts.



To be continued..... 

سهيل الليل

If a year ago, someone told me, you will have what I have right now. I would have cracked a broken laugh and told them you are really dreaming. As I would imagine myself drowned in sorrow all that time.

On May 29th, 2016 at 5:35 pm, we were blessed with another son I called سهيل. A name I chosen that reminds of all those good songs that had his name. 

An angel baby indeed, he made my mama get better, he made me get better. 

I never thought I would pass through birth without mom and hubby beside me. However, god sent  my best friends, those who never at one second made me feel any less lonely. I have a family. A bigger family than I could imagine. 

I learned that you can easily be whatever you tell your mind to be. I lived most years of my life reciting that am a very sensitive, dependant person. Going through my last expereince proved the compelete opposite. I chose to have a quite birth, with nobody but my doc. God made me trust her. 

It was the first time that I draw a memory where I had full control of how I want it to be. That alone is the biggest miracle.

Natural feelings

Everything new is scary.

When I changed jobs I was scared

When I had my son Mohamed I was scared

When I opened Amaryllis I was scared

Fear was a natural feeling that accompanied me throughout most of my milestone changes.

We shouldn't look at fear as an obstacle but rather a push to us to be extra prepared.

Happy 2016. A year of changes ❤️

Living a Yesterday

Knowing that yesterday was more than 10 or 15 years ago. 

Me and my 4 siblings sitting on the floor watching Mbc movies, while mama was doing her magic in the kitchen. 

By magic I really mean, eggs and tomatos, chicken nuggets, homemade bread, or just some fresh cream, jam for dipping. 

How can such a simple sitting be the foundation of all our memories, our contentment. For us to base our happiness on that single memory that I often felt was so soul-filling. 

Fate brought us all together once again now in Manhattan. We re lived that same memory without us knowing until the mid of our meal, when we all looked up at the same time and thought wow doesn't it feel like when we were young? 

Deep down We have not changed a bit, the exterior changed, which at the end it does not really matter. 

Sometimes it makes me think, was it nesscary for mom to be sick for us to live our life once again. And do the things we forgot how happy it made us. 

 

Or is it god's way to say goodbye mama! 

What the wind brought

One of my friends asked me today: 

How does it feel during this period of time? 

The first image that came to my mind is, me riding a boat in the middle of the ocean, sometimes it's bad news that feels like that boat is crashing into the high waves, and some other days, we are sailing softly. 

For yet we find the survival rope. We sail till the wind brings us home. 

You are my Favorite.

The golden age has approached us, the age of continuos discoveries, new words, new places, and the whole personality standing mightly on the table.

Mohamed is no longer my baby. He is a tiny human-being that makes my heart aches when he speaks that cute new yorker accent.

I never knew I would be this cheesy and talk about motherhood love, but seriously it is like no other love. I just feels different. Only those who were blessed with this gift will know what am talking about.


For now, I deeply wish for my loved ones to be as blessed as I am. 

Newborn Soul

From the outside, I look the same.

Deep down, I changed.

Oh I changed so much.

For the better I live. That's the aim. 

I See Dead People Living

Every wednesday. 8:00 AM, coffee's smoke is filling the room, fingers clicking on the keyboard. Pencils jotting down notes, memories, and lots more.

That room I saw every Wednesday for the past 6 months, is nothing but a hospital waiting room. Every single person sitting, is batteling a cancer of his own.

Yet.

They are more lively, more focused. Than any other healthy person I've seen.

Sickness is sometimes a good wake up call. To remind me what really matters in your life is you and yourself and your own. Later, comes everything else.

It's the time you should be selfish to do the things for yourself that you may have not done because of other engagements.

What's more beautiful is to actually live this way, rather than waiting for that wake up call. When sometimes it's too late.

Enjoy living. 

When Joody Speaks

I listen.

& I listen carefuly.

That friend I met through a friend of a friend of a friend, shared more happy crazy moments than any other, would turn out to be the a person I run the same emotional marathon with.

As I move with my days, I have two choices, either I dwell, I cry, I swear off that fate that brought us this situation, or put on a happy mask over my face and live normally as if am like everybody else.

Because truthfuly, I came to realize cancer is not a one day or few days thing, it could be as the doc puts it "Indefenite". Who knows! Really! Who knows!

So I chose.

I chose the Happy Mask. I started noticing aspects of my life, that were causing me more stress and harm than any good, they were people, places, that no longer make any sense for me to continue having in my life.

Cleaning up my chest is the way forward. For me to start accepting my reality. 

At the end of the day

To always seeing the glass half full. 

6 months earlier

"I Wish I could disappear"

I uttered these words continuously, I usually don't remember things I say in any given day. But that sentence was so powerful, I feel skies and angels heard me. For now, I did disappear.

I put an end to all my life back home, and started a completely new chapter in another place. The idea gives me chills sometimes. Is law of attraction that strong and sensitive?

Silence

I took a sip of my coffee, it's been sitting there for half an hour. So cold!

النسيان نعمة

I still live the shock, mom still has cancer.  But god miracles happens to us as we live everyday, as we raise our hands and shed a tear for things to get better. Cuz things do get better in a way, I cannot explain. You just wake up, and see your loved one, the way you always saw them; Strong & Happy. Maybe that's not the reality, maybe they are still sick and in pain, but angles patted my shoulder and assured me everything will be Ok. 

Life as we speak.

spring of 2015, 2 weeks my celebrating my 28th birthday, mom was diagnosed with Cancer already at late stages. And for those who know my mother, she is not just a mother, she is a true best friend, and I don't mean it in a cheesy way, no she is really my best friend. A person I will have to call every single day just to chat and laugh.

I myself was a younger version of her soul. So me finding out this information literally recked my world, it split my head, I felt my heart was displaced. That was how much the shock moved my core.

For god's miracles, all of this was showing as a strong well Infront of her innocence toward this stupid sickness. I was with her though it all. To the smallest bits. I was able to move mountains for her. And could I have ever done it without my circle of sunshine, friends that ironically been through cancer with loved ones before. They lift me up, they stood by mentally, emotionally and physically. True oh so true, misery loves company. It even left me thinking how god has a reason in all your life encounters!

I talk now, because am aware of now, am better now. I recovered yesterday, but am clueless about tomorrow. If it was worse, guess what? Am ready. I had learned a lot from the past two months than I have ever learned in my whole life time.

Live with no expectations.

Love.