Lessons on living from my late uncle

Turning on a tune by Egyptian legend Abdel Halim Hafez, my sister Mandy handed her iPod to Uncle Hoda and gestured him to place the headphones over his ears. Seconds later, an expression combining astonishment and glee came over his face while listening to a melody that must have taken him back at least three decades. Our uncle laughed and sang along to the words of “Gana El Hawa, the Love Came to Us,” while swaying his head from side to side, fully mesmerized in enjoyment of the moment.

If there’s anything that I will always treasure about my Uncle Hoda, who passed away last month following a battle with cancer, God bless his soul, it is that he was among only a small number of people that I’ve encountered who lived for the present.

I imagine it was Uncle Hoda’s deep connection with God that enabled him to embody this state of being. He spoke with great reverence of the Divine, and the love that sprang from that bond was contagious. Positivity and optimism radiated from him; whenever he entered a room, it was with the lightness and calmness of a person who was content with the joys and patient with the challenges of his life.

As my two sisters and I reminisced in our Whatsapp chat room about our beloved maternal uncle in the days following his passing, we alternated between tears and laughter. I was struck at how profoundly he had affected each of us, given we lived far apart most of our lives, Uncle Hoda in Egypt and us in a scattering of cities around North America, the Arabian Gulf and Europe.

It was joyous to reunite with our uncle during summer holidays, the distresses of our childhood dissolving away in his playful presence. He was consistently ready to offer a smile, which would make his small eyes almost disappear beneath his bushy eyebrows. Whether he was getting us to hum and sing along to the latest Egyptian pop song or sending us into an endless round of giggles during an afternoon drive around Cairo by swerving his car to the right and left in a zigzag pattern, Uncle Hoda always made us feel like the centre of his attention.

Sitting in Tuileries

My late father never visited Paris. Yet for me he is always here. Back in July 2010 during my first visit to this magnificent city, I called my father while sitting in Tuileries, the beautifully manicured gardens situated beside the Louvre.

What I didn't know then was that we were having our last proper conversation before my dad passed away, suddenly, four weeks later. That bright and warm summer afternoon would be the final time he was alive for me.

God has, miraculously, blessed me with the ability to visit Paris numerous times since then. I have walked through Tuileries, pictured here yesterday, in every season. Whether summer, winter, spring or autumn, I sense my father's presence as I stroll across this elegant garden. Each time I have paused for a moment of reflection and remembrance. Al Fatihah, the opening verse of the Holy Quran, I have read for my father's soul.

While the details of our conversation are now a faint memory, the nearness that I sense to my father in this garden on which he never tread remains timelessly poignant.

My favourite things in the UAE: a bittersweet blog

About four months ago I started photographing some of my favourite things in the Dubai, and neighbouring areas, where I’ve lived for the past eight years. I took snapshots of locally available food items, unique restaurants and cultural and social spaces that have become dear to me over the years and, in the end, have made this place feel like home. I planned to compile the photos into a blog, along with a short description of each of my choices, to give others a glimpse into some of the valuable little discoveries that have enlivened my daily experience living in the UAE.

I didn’t realise when I started the creative process that by the time I actually got around to putting this blog together, I would be less than 10 days away from leaving Dubai indefinitely. This project ended up being more for me than anyone else – a way of capturing some of the fleeting colours and flavours of my daily life that are easy to take for granted, but that I will miss dearly when I move away early next month.

The key reason it took me so long to write the blog, or any other for that matter, is that I’ve been channelling my energy and free time since late March into building my first-ever scrapbook. A dear colleague of mine left me with a book full of empty cardboard-coloured sheets before she moved to London in the spring, and suggested I make a scrapbook of my time in Dubai. An arts-and-crafts novice, I looked at the 60-odd blank pages with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and great enthusiasm. My mind started to whirl at random with the treasure chest of memories I could include in this book.

There were literally thousands of photos I’d taken over the years languishing in dormant files on my laptop and external hard drive, lost in an abyss of electronic memory, never to be printed or revisited. I immediately started sifting through the dozens of photo files to piece together a somewhat chronological tapestry of the past eight years. It was a daunting task. I must have visited the Digi Photo studio in Dubai Mall about 10 times and printed more than 250 photographs. Along with printed e-mails, letters, greeting cards and notes, business cards, tickets, logos, maps and other trinkets I’ve collected over the years, these pictures have since filled my Dubai scrapbook to the brim with a whirlwind of documented moments.

When I started my scrapbook in late March, I had no idea that within a month, I would also be planning a move to London to pursue a sudden opportunity within my company. The scrapbook I had started suddenly became much more meaningful and urgent. I endeavoured to complete it before I left, as a way of expressing gratitude and appreciation to the people, places and precious moments that have fundamentally moved me over the years. It’s now more than 90 percent complete, with just a couple of blank pages remaining to fill with those final moments that will round off this momentous chapter of my life.

Creating this book has been a labour of love that I’ve worked on quite obsessively in recent months, very often spending hours sitting with scissors, coloured paper, and double-sided tape as I diligently pieced together themed pages in a somewhat chronological order. As I flip through its pages now, my Dubai scrapbook provides an overview of the (four) jobs I’ve had since I moved to this city, the many colleagues I worked with, the business and leisure trips that I took, the precious friends I’ve made and the series of unforgettable experiences that will remain with me for years to come.

During the process of searching for material, I stumbled upon a letter I had written to God on my flight from Canada to Dubai in July 2005. I hadn’t seen that letter in almost eight years and I realised, quite miraculously, as I read the words that every wish and hope I had jotted down on that one-way trip, had since come true. That note is now tucked away in the front sleeve in my scrapbook, and serves as an unassuming introduction to the rich anthology of experiences that followed. I also dedicated a few pages to my late father, God bless his soul, who passed away three years ago, including a letter I wrote him after he passed away. His e-mails to me during my early years in Dubai, when he lived across the world in Vancouver, Canada, are dispersed throughout the book.

Now that my scrapbook project is near completion, and before I leave what has become a dear home for a new adventure in London, I thought I would finally take the time to share some of my favourite things in the UAE. I will hopefully have more time very soon to start writing about my evolving spiritual journey after a hiatus of many months. Sometimes along that journey it’s better to absorb and reflect than to emit.

15 of my favourite things in the UAE:

1) Marmum yogurt

I absolutely adore yogurt and one of my favourite things about Dubai is that it locally produces the best yogurt I have ever had. Hands down. I tried virtually every type of yogurt when I first moved to Dubai and Marmum was the clear winner very early on, boasting the perfect creamy consistency that I adore. It is especially good when combined with some honey and Muesli. I introduced Marmum yogurt to one of my closest friends a few years ago. Shortly afterward she admitted to buying giant tubs of the stuff and eating it like ice cream. I will definitely be missing that almost-daily dose of my favourite yogurt.

2) Modern Bakery

While we’re on the subject of food, I come to another of my favourite grocery-store picks. Living in the Middle East means that you will eat a good deal of pita bread and, after a process of trial and error, I always choose Modern Bakery variety brown and white pita loaves. The flavour is SO much better than all of the others, which tend to be too sweet an aftertaste for my palette. (The exception being the Carrefour bakery’s fresh, white pita bread, which is also amazingly good) A large brown Modern Bakery pita, heated on the stove top and eaten with the Al Marai variety of white cheese (in the blue package) and some black Syrian olives (from Union Coop) is a real treat.

3) Zabeel Park

Let’s take a (short) break from food and visit Zabeel Park. Long before the Dubai metro, this park in Bur Dubai offered one of the only bridges that enabled pedestrians to cross a busy Dubai highway. I often visited Zabeel for walks when I lived in Bur Dubai between 2005 and 2009, and enjoyed walking across the pedestrian bridge that connects to two sides of the park separated by the Sheikh Rashid highway. Since I hadn’t been to Zabeel in a few years, I went last week to capture a photo of the bridge, which proved to be an arduous task, particularly at 2 p.m. in mid-July. I admit it wasn’t as romantic as I remembered it. My sister and I were literally drenched in sweat and panting from (and cursing) the suffocating heat by the time we crossed it, and only managed to gather up enough energy for the return trip due to a miraculously cool breeze, some “accidental” walks into sprinklers, and a pretty tree with gorgeous white flowers.

My mother's sister

One of my fondest memories of my maternal auntie Sanaa, who passed away yesterday, was observing as she and mom embraced, giggled and gossiped as they sat together upon reuniting following a separation of several years. You couldn't interrupt their joy and intent focus on one another. It was as though I wasn't in the room as they sat on my aunt's bed holding hands and bursting into uproarious laughter, literally, every five minutes.

They shared stories and recounted events from years passed. They spoke as two souls who hadn't been apart for a second, let alone five or six years. Their laughs came from somewhere in the depths of their bodies that can only be touched and activated by one's sister. It was simply a beautiful and unfortunately rare site to see.

God's tests for my late aunt were often trying: an early divorce, a lifelong struggle with asthma, arthritis and breast cancer. She endured with faith and persevered, always turning to God for comfort. May Allah rest her soul in peace and grant her Heaven.

As my mom's elder sister returned to God-- the ultimate destination of us all-- I was once again reminded of how near, present and palpable death is. After losing my father, two paternal and two maternal uncles, as well as two aunts in the past few years, God bless their souls, I suppose the thought that my loved ones will pass away has become a central part of my consciousness. I wouldn't say it scares me, but it reminds me to honour the important people in my life, to spend as much time as possible with them, always realising that our moments together are precious and -- ultimately -- temporary.

When you leave me in the grave -  say goodbye

Remember a grave is only a curtain for the paradise behind

Excerpt from Jalaluddin Rumi’s poem “When I Die”

In loving memory

(A version of this article was carried by The Huffington Post) 

One of my favourite pastimes while visiting British Columbia during my summer holiday is taking morning strolls down the meandering gravel trail that stretches alongside the Fraser River situated about 10 minutes from our house in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, Canada.

A walk along the pathway in the early morning isn't particularly elaborate; its beauty is much more unassuming and steeped in nostalgia. The gravel path glides along an untrimmed shoreline of marshes, scattered clusters of wildflowers and trees both drooped and willowy. A backdrop of sounds combine the crunch of the gravel, singing birds, lapping waves, the occasional seaplane landing and the imbued silence and freshness of the open air. On the river’s edge, one may find a man sitting on one of the rocks or wooden logs resting against the slanted cliff of the waterbody, his fishing rod dunked into the freshwater in hopes of catching a Pacific salmon, trout or flounder. A family of ducks, meanwhile, may be gliding its way across the water nearby.

An elderly couple may be standing at the edge of the riverbank, performing tai chi as the water behind them stretches out into the Pacific Ocean in the distance. When the skies are clear, as they often are in July, it can be difficult to distinguish the horizon where the blue of the ocean ends and the sky begins. The couple will remain intently engaged in their martial art as residents pass by, alone or in pairs, jogging, walking or cycling across the multi-kilometre trail that stretches much of the length of the city. Almost everyone is ready to greet with a friendly ‘good morning’.

This winding ecological trail is evidently teeming with life, and yet across the length of it are reminders about death embedded on a sequence of wooden benches situated all along the pathway, overlooking the waterfront.

Positioned a few metres apart, the benches allow passersby to pause, relax and take in the serene surroundings -- and each one is adorned with a plaque dedicated to someone who has passed away. The tributes that engrave the plaques often begin with the phrase ‘In loving memory,’ with the name of the deceased and the years they were alive etched below the inscription.

 

A short dedication to commemorate the late person’s life will follow, sometimes including a unique message that only the person’s family members would be able to fully decipher and appreciate. The messages often contain universal reminders of how precious the time we spend with our loved ones is – and how we can never know when and how death will inevitably divide us.

I sat on one of these benches this week for a short break after a brisk several-kilometre walk, pausing before retracing my footsteps back home. My thoughts turned to my late father, God bless his soul; it will be two years since he passed away on the second day of the holy month of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, which begins this month. He often enjoyed sitting on these benches and I wondered if he had perhaps sat in the same spot several years before, gazing at the river as I was on that morning.

His death was sudden, leaving me no opportunity to change aspects of our relationship that were not entirely functional, or address snags in our communication that I had put off trying to rectify, expecting I would have years to do so. When he died, I sensed that all of his time in this world, the years leading up to the moment he was no longer accessible, was equal a millisecond – one that I could never retrieve.

 “Every soul is certain to taste death:

We test you all through the bad and the good, and to Us you will all return”

(Quran, 21:35)

We often shirk at reminders of death in our daily lives. We race through life as though we are racing down this trail and while we may see the benches, we rush past them, ignoring what is written on the plaques. Perhaps we regard the messages they hold as offering glimpses into someone else’s life, and although we may know our own mortality we do not truly apply this certainty to ourselves. That is, until someone dear to us dies.

The whole world in one place

Once again, I’ve travelled to what feels like the edge of the earth. From Dubai, my sister and I made the day-long trek to Canada’s West Coast, where my mom, older sister and nephews were waiting for a long-overdue reunion at the house we bought just over a decade ago.

While arduous, the flight from Dubai over Europe, across the Atlantic and through Northern Canada to Vancouver, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, does succeed at disconnecting me from my daily life in the Arabian Peninsula. With a time difference that literally spans night and day, I’m able to appreciate the holiday, far away from my hectic work schedule, that I will spend with those dearest to my heart.

On our first morning, which felt like night time due to the 11 hours of jet lag I'm trying to overcome, my two sisters – one older, one younger – and I were counting the countries we had collectively visited for work and pleasure trips so far this year. For the three of us, who spent most of our childhood years in North America and have travelled little for leisure, it was a surprisingly long list: Malaysia, Spain, Britain, Germany, France, Egypt, Singapore and South Africa.

My mom – who was heating some loaves and buns of her delicious homemade bread that she’d prepared in anticipation of our arrival – seemed entirely uninterested in our conversation. While she travels a great deal, her purpose in doing so is singular and always has been. She travels to bridge the distance between our family home in a Vancouver suburb, her daughters in the Arabian Gulf and her homeland, Egypt.

The thought of a leisure trip simply to explore a new land has never occurred to her. She hasn’t been to Europe, visited Latin America or traversed Asian cities, nor has she ever wanted to. For many years, much of the reason for this lack of travel was financial as she focused her attention on caring and saving for her daughters, reluctant to spend a spare dime on herself. But even now that money isn’t an issue, her desire to explore the world remains limited.

“God has made every place beautiful,” she often says. Her perspective is, I believe, guided by her unwavering faith in God. She knows with certainty that He will show her all that she is destined to see in this world and that she shouldn’t strive to become too consumed in accumulating possessions or spending large amounts of money on travelling to gratify her ego. “I have all I need when I am with you,” she says.

Travelling for pleasure is something new to me, as well. I took my first-ever non-work or family-related trip only two years ago. To celebrate my birthday, my younger sister and I travelled to Istanbul, Turkey, for four immensely enjoyable days. I previously hadn’t had the cash to spare for leisure trips, saving all of my holiday-time to visit family in North America.

Even now that I am able to afford to take these journeys, I find myself hesitating. While I do take pleasure in exploring new places, I'm inclined to view such trips are a privilege rather than a necessity. This year, I visited my dearest friends in Malaysia this year to attend a wedding, and took a short trip to Cairo for my birthday to witness the changes to my motherland brought about by last year’s popular uprising first hand.

But as I sit here in our family home – my nephews, mom, sisters and brother-in-law within a reachable distance for the next three weeks – I can see what my mom sees. 

The greatest contentment is not quantified in the number of new cities and countries we visit, but in realising the value of the places inhabited by those dearest to us. When our loved ones are near, we don’t need to be anywhere in particular to witness the beauty of the entire world in one place.

Remembering my quirky uncle

“What can you do when you live in a zoo?” 

My sister sent this phrase to me in a text message today, reminding me of a line one of my uncles would often say to make light of life’s ups and downs. Never take anything too seriously always seemed to be the philosophy which guided his life, for better or – as was often the case – for worse.

My sisters and I exchanged memories of our maternal uncle Adel throughout the afternoon after learning this morning that he had passed away (الله يرحمه/God rest his soul). It was a tough and emotional day coming to grips with the idea that I wouldn’t see my uncle again during this life.

Me nestled between two of my uncles in Cairo, Uncle Adel on the left

He was in many ways my last living link to my father, who died almost two years ago (الله يرحمه). My father and uncle Adel, the second-eldest of my mom’s male siblings, had become close friends during their days studying electrical engineering at Cairo University. In the early years after graduation and before they crossed 30, they worked together, travelled to places including Kuwait and Bombay, India--adventures I had heard little about growing up, and perhaps they will forever remain a mystery in the crevices of my late father and uncle's evaporated memories. Both had later decided simultaneously to emigrate to Canada in the late 1970s to complete Master’s studies and pursue their careers.

It was my father’s continual presence at his good friend’s home in Giza that led to his acquaintance with my mom and their eventual marriage.

My mom and uncle in 1960s Port Said, Egypt

Since my father and both of his brothers passed away in recent years, it was really Uncle Adel who kept those memories alive for me, which makes his passing more bitter and difficult. I associate Uncle Adel with so many stages in my life because, unlike all of my other uncles and aunts, he would visit us frequently at our home in Vancouver, Canada, often staying for prolonged periods of time.

I spent a good part of my late morning and early afternoon praying for my uncle with tear-filled eyes, talking to my mom and reading excerpts of the Holy Quran for his soul. Yet by later in the afternoon I found myself laughing as my sisters and we shared memories of Uncle Adel’s cheerful disposition.

I remembered how, while visiting us during my university years, he would never fail to wake up bright and early, often before anyone of us could flutter an eyelid, and start singing “You are so beautiful to me” in the shower quite loudly, before getting dressed and heading out for a stroll just after sunrise. This routine annoyed me to no end as I struggled to get enough sleep before heading to a morning lecture after spending a late night working on an essay or reading assignment.

Singing Elvis Presley’s classic “You Are Always on My Mind” was among my uncle’s other quirky customs. He would look into my eyes intently and pronounce in a very high, exaggerated pitch, “Maybe I”, before looking away and mumbling the rest of the line “didn’t love you quite often as I could have.” That was the only line of the song he knew, I think, and it sent me into hysterical laughter every time without fail.

My Five Fs (+1) for Fulfilment

This entry will be a bit different. It is perhaps – well, probably – slightly cheesy. But a bit of ‘cheesy’ is not necessarily a bad thing; I think cheese in moderation, much like a creamy slice of Havarti, can often add some much-needed satisfaction to a daily routine of unsalted crackers.

I have been thinking lately about what brings me fulfilment in life, and I discovered that the key components of my general satisfaction and happiness at this moment in time could be summed up in five words, all of which start with the letter F. So below I outline a list of my FIVE Fs (+1) for FULFILMENT as I see them unfold in my daily life.

1) FAITH

Faith comes first for me because discovering and uncovering my intimate bond with God has been the greatest gift of my life, and sustaining this bond is my biggest priority. The imam at the mosque I attend for Friday prayer said last week that one’s faith is embodied in one’s patience and gratefulness. It is seeing the blessing in everything and treating all of God’s creations with compassion and tolerance. That is what living as a Muslim, which translates from Arabic as “one who submits” to the Almighty, has helped me discover in the purest sense. Regular prayer, regular charity, fasting, righteous deeds, patience, perseverance and honesty are all essential components of faith.

In the past two years since I started nurturing this bond with God, or Allah in Arabic, I’ve faced some difficult times. I’ve lost a parent, endured a relationship breakup, been laid off of a job, to name a few. My faith has given me the patience to work through life’s ups and downs, and I’ve never been happier than I have been in the past two years. I strive each day to be grateful and for the blessings in my life, and to be patient and thankful for all of the trials I face. Yasmin Mogahed, a superbly talented writer on Islamic spirituality, recently sent a tweet that encapsulates this bond within the 140-character limit. She tweeted: “To be most successful: when you're with the Creator, be with the Creator, and when you're with the creation, also be with the Creator.”

Faith comes first in my discovery of fulfilment each day because it is the common thread weaving together all of the other components.

 

2) FAMILY

Family has always been important to me. But until my father passed away almost two years ago, I didn’t realise in the deepest sense how important it is to constantly nurture my bond with those who are closest to me. One of the greatest consequences of uncovering my faith was discovering the honour that comes with treating ones parents with compassion and care. This has led me to strengthen and deepen my bond with my mom. Being close to family, taking care of them, knowing they are healthy and happy brings me great fulfilment. In a world where very little is consistent and people are leaving our lives as quickly as they entered them, our closest, dearest family members can form the rock on which we stand; this rock is always firm and helps us hold ourselves straight and tall.

I have a sister who is many years younger than I am. During her teens in Canada, I was away a good deal of time pursuing a journalism career in Egypt and then Dubai. This gave us very little chance to bond during her formative years and I could sense the void whenever we were together. Almost three years ago, that changed. She came to live with me and found a job in the same city, and in the time since we formed that bond I had missed out on earlier. Her presence transformed my cold, indifferent world away from home into a place that was quite suddenly full of closeness and meaning. I started to see my surroundings differently and the soul-less city began to feel more like a soulful home than just a place I was working. There are few greater blessings than developing and treasuring one’s bond with parents and siblings.

Lost Letters

(A version of this story was carried by the Huffington Post)

One memory from my childhood was watching my mom sit at the kitchen table with a pen and stack of lined loose-leaf sheets of paper to write one of her three sisters a long letter, handwritten in attractive Arabic script.

This was one of the only activities that could draw mom away from her rigorous daily routine of managing every family affair and caring for three daughters with boundless dedication. Taking the time to write letters was a rare respite for our supermom. She would become immersed in her thoughts and intently focus on the blank sheets in front of her, as well as the multi-paged letter she’d received in the mail a day or two prior and was then replying to.

For more than an hour, swiftly and with ease, she would craft page after page of prose, pouring onto the paper the multitude of thoughts and feelings that she had stored in a crevice of her mind for the months, if not more than a year, since the last time she sat down to write to one of her sisters.

Most of my childhood years were spent on Canada’s Prairies and the West Coast bordering the Pacific Ocean. This situated my mom literally a world apart from her sisters, who hadn’t strayed from their childhood home on Egypt’s coastline along the Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea.

Long-distance phone calls, costly and impractical, were reserved for religious holidays like Eid al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. These infrequent conversations would end as quickly as they started. My mom was constrained to giving her siblings short and impersonal greetings in the 10 minutes or less they had of airtime.

Meanwhile, our family trips to Egypt were few and far between, a stretch of several years separating each visit. When mom did get together with her sisters, we (her daughters) would suddenly cease to exist. They would seclude themselves in the bedroom or balcony for hours of gossip, uproarious laughter and heartfelt embraces.

Tunes for a Lifetime

Long before YouTube gave us instant access to all of our favourite music, my older sister and I would wait for the videos of our preferred artists to appear on televised music countdowns and record them on a videocassette so we could watch them over and over again. We would replay the tunes on the family room VCR and, along with our younger sister, often try to mimic the notes and dance moves of our most-loved musicians.

When I learned of Whitney Houston’s death yesterday, my mind almost instantly turned to that videotape because there was a song of hers that we had recorded on it and, at one stage when I was about 13-14 years old, I watched it repeatedly. It was called “Miracle”.  The holding power a great song has over the course of one’s lifetime is remarkable. Hearing it, we instantly tune back to the moment its effect was most palpable.  

Whitney’s immaculate, powerful voice singing the lyrics as she sat in what appeared as a deserted auditorium, juxtaposed with photographs of young people in various contexts of struggle and success, left an impression on me at a time in my life when I was searching for guidance.

We were dealing with some very personal, tricky family struggles that led my sisters and I to become quite closed off from our surroundings. At times, the pressure was overwhelming and it wasn’t always possible for me to derive comfort from loved ones. This video in particular, I would view intently and frequently.

How could you understand the way I feel.

How could you relate to so much pain.

Seems as though nothing can comfort me.

So today, I pray, that someone should listen…

Watching the black-and-white scenes and listening carefully as though Whitney’s lyrics were written for me, I understood the song to be about embracing circumstances, overcoming obstacles and making choices that would change our lives for the better. The song helped me contextualise the struggles I faced against the grander scheme of reality. As bad as things may have appeared, everyone has a taste of anguish and is often faced cumbersome tests of resolve and faith.

Bread baked with love

Just a few days into my summer holiday, and my mom is baking bread for one of our neighbours whose family is visiting Denmark this week. She is always up well before 8 a.m. on these days because baking bread is a several-step process and each one demands time and patience.

Throughout my life, my mom always baked bread at home: traditional Egyptian white and brown pita bread, bagels, buns and rolls. She was born with a flair for baking; never picking up a cook book yet somehow instinctively knowing how much of each ingredient to use in cakes, cookies and pastries.

When she first moved to Canada from Egypt, mom was troubled to find that most of the bread sold in grocery stores and bakeries contained lard of pig fat, often used as shortening, which Muslims are forbidden from eating. Growing up in a majority Muslim country she never had to concern herself with the ingredients of basic food items like bread. But in Canada, many freshly baked and packaged breads and biscuits contained lard, which she had no intention of starting to consume.

So as a practicing Muslim, she decided to start baking bread at home.

This week, as she knelt over the big plastic mixing basin she has always used to firmly knead together flour, milk, salt and yeast, I asked her how she learned to bake bread. She responded intuitively in Arabic, ‘life taught me ya Daliah’.

My mom often gives that response when she is unable to pin down exactly how events transpired. In this case, it is completely true. She did not learn from any book or person how to bake bread, she just followed her instincts in the kitchen and reacted to the needs of her family. In addition to avoiding store-bought baked goods containing lard, baking at home helped her save a good deal of money as my father finished his university studies and struggled to start his career.

As a child, my mom would watch her mother prepare the dough for traditional Egyptian pita bread. Then she and her sisters would take the uncooked loaves to an open fire-powered oven in the neighbourhood for baking. I suppose watching her mom bake bread somehow sparked her talent, but my mom learned how to bake many varieties of bread all on her own. She often experimented with new varieties using milk instead of water, adding raisins, sesame seeds or spices.

My favourite bread is my mom’s classic brown pita bread made with white and whole wheat flour, which is especially irresistible when drizzled with butter as soon as it comes out of the oven. My mom bakes dozens of loaves at a time and freezes them so they can be consumed for many weeks.

I cannot imagine baking bread myself. The process is quite daunting and requires a great deal of elbow grease and patience. After vigorously kneading together flour, fresh yeast, salt and milk, mom covers the large heap of dough with several thick clothes to allow it to rise.

After about an hour, she takes hand-sized pieces of dough and rolls them into balls, setting them on the counter and covering them for an hour or so until they rise further.

Depending on the type of bread, she will roll out the dough into a flat circular shape if she is baking pita bread. Otherwise, she’ll mould each small mound of dough into rectangular buns or bagels. These are placed in oven pans and then covered again to allow them to rise once more before baking.

The scent of freshly baked bread is something that consistently reminds me of home, which is why waking up to find my mom diligently kneading dough this week was a delight because I haven’t been to our home in Canada for two years. When she visits me or my sisters she doesn’t bake bread; it is one of her routines only when she is in her kitchen.

Painting a moment of my history

Painting by Mandy Merzaban, Oil on Canvas, 2011

I received the greatest birthday present of my life last week. My younger sister re-created a moment of my childhood in a painting depicting me as a baby celebrating my first birthday with my mom and elder sister. The three of us are kneeling before the living room table of our apartment in a suburb of Toronto, Canada. My mom had covered the table with a selection of fruits and pastries placed carefully upon a table cloth, which she always did when we had guests over.

It is a painting rich in colour, detail and memory. For much of my childhood we had this bright, flower-print red couch with two matching side chairs bought when my parents first immigrated to Canada from Egypt in the late 1970s. My father was completing his Master’s degree in electrical engineering and my parents were living in a small apartment in Ontario, where they had their first two daughters.

The couch was my mom’s first furniture purchase after marriage and she recalls being very excited with it. As we moved from one city to another with my dad’s changes in employment, my sisters and I wore down that couch, which my parents gave away about 10 years the birthday party depicted here. But in this painting, it was still brand new, much like I was at the time.  

It was wonderful to watch my younger sister recreate this moment on a canvas with oil paints, paying attention to many intricate details – my mom’s lovely features and thick auburn hair wrapped in a braided bun on the side of her head, the table cloth that appears in many photographs through the years and is still stored in a dining room cabinet.

Rather than being tucked away in a photo album that is rarely opened, this moment of family history will now be framed and hung in my own living room to become part of my present and future.

Gifts for my late father on his birthday

For the first time in my life, I won’t be able to wish my dad a happy birthday on June 13.

He passed away last August quite suddenly at 64. I wasn’t sure how I would feel when his birthday came around this year. After all, for every year of my life, my dad’s birthday fell on the same week as Father’s Day and two days before my own birthday. I suppose it is natural to sense there is something missing this week.

I remember one of my dear friends called me the day after he passed last Ramadan. Her father had died several years earlier and she spoke of how it had taken a number of years for her to fully come to terms with his death. She eventually found comfort in the idea that her father is her ‘wasta’ in Heaven. Wasta is an Arabic term that refers to people who are connections with clout, able to get you favourable treatment, usually in government offices.

She put a smile on my face when she said that; it was one of a number of ideas that brought me comfort in the first few days of separation.

I continue to get teary eyed when I speak of specific memories we shared, browse through old photographs or hear a sappy song. Sometimes I will cry deeply when I am up in the early morning giving dua’a (supplications) for my dad before the dawn prayer, fajr. There are ever-present thoughts that I could have done and said more during his life.

Yet I surprised myself and many people I know by how calm I was after my dad’s death. My faith in God helped me rationalise, accept and even rejoice at his passing. I know that may sound strange, but it makes perfect sense when you embrace the concept that death is the most-important point along the journey of life. If a person has lived a virtuous life and espouses sincere belief in God and His message, death is a time to celebrate the soul’s reunion with its Creator. Rumi articulates this better than I ever could:

Our death is our wedding with eternity.

What is the secret? God is One.

The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.

This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;

It is not in the juice made from the grapes.

For he who is living in the Light of God,

The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.

(Excerpt from a poem by Jalaluddin Rumi, Mystic Odes 833)

Through my faith, it has been possible for me to continue having a meaningful relationship with my father. I certainly spend a great deal more time thinking of and praying for him now than I did during his life.

It was surrendering to Islam, the Arabic term meaning ‘submission to God’, that helped me soften the blow of my father’s passing. There are so many gifts we can continue to give to our loved ones once they have departed from this world. The more I delve into my submission, the more I uncover new layers of this that I had been unaware of.

We have the power as children to seek favour for our parents with God. A person’s soul, when separated from the body, remains in a state known as Barzakh, the interval between death and the Day of Judgement. According to tradition, God opens a window for the righteous that brings Heaven into sight when they enter Barzakh.

The last Prophet, Muhammad ﷺ, said of the deceased: “When a person dies, his actions come to an end, except in one of three ways: A continuing act of charity, a useful contribution to knowledge, or a righteous child who prays for him.”

When I first heard of this Hadith from my brother-in-law the day of my father’s death, it brought me instant comfort. I immediately incorporated dua’a for my father after every prayer. Since I pray five times every day, this means I have been able to keep remembrance of my father frequent and consistent in my daily routine.

When we give dua’a, we ask God with a dedicated heart to fulfil our righteous and legitimate requests for ourselves and others. I ask God to forgive my father for any wrong action, to grant him peace and serenity, to elevate him in the ranks of Paradise, to bless his soul.

We learn from Hadith, sayings of the Last Prophet ﷺ, that our dua’a reach our loved ones. When the deceased receives dua’a from the living, “he becomes so delighted it as if he has something better than everything on this earth. Certainly, Allah (God) confers reward on people in the grave equal to the mountains.”

Imagine that. Just by praying for your parent’s soul, this gift reaches his/her soul and is so valuable to them that it renders the entire world and their lives in it insignificant in comparison.

Another Hadith speaks of how God will elevate the ranks of some believers in Paradise on the Day of Judgement, based on the actions of their children. The parent will ask of God ‘How did I get this high rank?’, and God will say, ‘Your children prayed for your forgiveness, and it is due to the dua’a of your children that I have granted you this position’.

Calling home

Our home, photo by Mandy Merzaban

This is our family home in Richmond, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver, captured in a photo my younger sister shared with me yesterday upon arriving home with our mom. My sisters and I have not been home for almost two years, the 24-hour travel time and 12-hour time difference discouraging frequent visits. This was among the first images I saw of the fresh coat of paint, new front door and outdoor lamps my mother picked out last year. Celebrating the fact that we had paid off the mortgage for this house a year prior, she decided to renovate the exterior, which had become rundown after more than two decades with limited repair.

How we came to own this house was a something of a miracle, one of those events in life that enhances one's faith in God-granted destiny.

It was, initially, the home of a close high school friend of my older sister. Her family had rented the house for years. I remember visiting it the day of my sister’s high school graduation party. Before heading downtown for the banquet, my sister, dressed in an elegant fuchsia-coloured party dress, and her girlfriends had assembled in the backyard of this friend’s home decked in their gowns to take some photographs on a sunny afternoon in June 1996, two years after we moved to Richmond.

At the time, we were renting a small bungalow about a 15-minute drive away and I recall that day my mom admiring the two-storey house with its well-groomed backyard and rose bushes, quaint wooden kitchen, modest-yet-charming family room, and pleasing separate living and dining rooms. She wished to God she could own such a home someday.

Renting properties was a nuisance we had gotten all too used to. The houses were typically over-priced and poorly maintained. Leasing a house often places you at the whim of a landlord who could decide at any time he wanted to sell the unit for a profit, leaving a parent scrambling to find a new abode in the middle of the school year. Yet buying a property in the mid-1990s in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia was a bit like seeking a castle in Spain for the average middle-class family. Property prices were soaring and supply was sparse.

My mom, tenacious as she is, must have gone through five or six real estate agents trying to find the perfect home to buy: the right place for the right price was her motto. I recall once we made an offer on a recently renovated 30-year-old traditional house with a flat roof on “Mortfield Road” in Richmond. The home’s new decor was impressive and the price was reasonable enough to warrant consideration. In the end, we backed out because of the roof – the rationale being that in a city that rains for what feels like two-thirds of the year, it's probably better to live in a house with a slanted roof so water does not accumulate on top. I have no clue if any architectural justification supports that assumption. Personally, I was more uneasy about the French word for “death” (Mort) embedded in the name of the street.

The neighbourhood at a distance

We had several other near hits in the following years, but circumstances were consistently not in our favour, and transactions would not go through sometimes for the oddest reasons. One house we quite liked until we learned there was an easement on the property, giving the municipality right of use over part of the land. Another time we found a lovely, almost-brand-new and spacious house in a neighbourhood a ways out of the city centre. On the verge of sealing the deal, we decided against it after a property assessor said the house suffered from a design flaw and was erected at a slant, not flat as it should be.

The three-letter word that taught me how to respect my parents

There is a brilliant and somewhat amusing line in the Holy Quran where God advises us concisely and clearly on how to treat our parents. Under no circumstances, even if we are entrusted with caring for our parents in old age or illness, should we say to them “uff” – the Arabic equivalent to an expression of annoyance such as “argh” or “ugh”.

I admit that when I read that line for the first time last year, I was humoured to see this colloquialism used in the pages of the Quran, Arabic for “The Recitation” – a series of messages and admonitions from God for humankind recited through the Last Prophet ﷺ.

“And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment. Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as] "uff," and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word. And lower to them the wing of humility out of mercy and say, ‘My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up [when I was] small’." (17: 23-24)

Mandy Merzaban, "Family Album" 2008, Acrylic on Canvas, 300 x 150 cm

The simplicity of these phrases made me smile, but also served as a reality check. The three-letter-word shook me instantly, changing my outlook on how to treat my parents and familial obligations. Besides worshiping and loving God, very little is more important than consistently acting toward ones parents with warmth and watching one's tongue.

Family has always been central for me and I was someone who was widely viewed as a good daughter. Yet, many times I would regard financial and moral obligations to my parents as a burden rather than a pleasure. Due to a series of circumstances – including illness and financial strain – I had perhaps more responsibilities than the average child from a young age. I understood the moral duty to care for family and endeavoured my best to perform these duties.

But I cannot say that my actions were always inspired by compassion and understanding. I would at times disagree with my parents, quarrel with them and fail to deal with them in tenderness. I think many of us can be negligent of our parents as we pursue our careers, travel, and search for love and friendship. We can also be unforgiving of mistakes they have made.