Hijab Swap

When I'm out shopping, and I pick up an item, this thought creeps into my mind. "What am I going to do with this when I'm dead." This thought always tempers whatever excitement I was feeling over the possibility that the item in my hand could be mine, but it also makes me think of all the stuff I have at home. It almost physically weighs me down.

By far, my biggest offense occurred several months before my surgery when I told my husband I was going to Target to buy a few essential items...and that's what I was doing, until I stumbled upon this giant wooden pair in the kitchen aisle. The little shopping monster in me (aka my nafs) ordered me to buy the good-for-nothing giant pair, and I followed the orders obediently. Needless to say, my husband had a ball teasing me about how "essential" giant pears are- I couldn't say anything because, as creative as I can be, I couldn't think of a single use for it.

I think for a long time, I took the habit of needless buying lightly, as if it was just a fun little quirk I had. But slowly, I allowed myself to be consumed with consumption. I was on a mission: I needed to find the perfect throw pillows, then I needed to find the perfect throw, then I needed to find the perfect luggage set. My life became a never-ending shopping list. Just as soon as I attained one "perfect" item, another shot up in it's place. How did I let this happen? How did I allow what I owned to become part of my identity?

“Doomed is the slave of the dinar, doomed is the slave of the dirham, doomed is the slave of fine cloth and doomed is the slave of velvet. If he is given something he is pleased and if he is denied, he is angry. Doomed is he!...” said the prophet (PBUH). I had allowed myself to become a slave. After reality came crashing down on me I saw what little good all my stuff had done for me. I looked upon most of my stuff with disdain, realizing how much time, money and mindshare it had all occupied.

It's so liberating now to go to the store and know that the nice things I see cannot tempt me. I try to make my purchases very deliberately, and when the new spring line at Pottery Barn rears it's pretty little head, I tell myself something Ali ibn ibi Talib (and one of my best friends taught me), "يا دنيا غري غيري " or roughly, "Oh world, go tempt someone else!"

So in an effort to simplify my life, and free myself of some of the "stuff" I felt was weighing me down, my friend and I organized a hijab swap. Most of my friends came to the event with an armload of hijabs, and went home with just two or three that they really liked. The remaining hijabs are going to an organization dedicated to serving abused Muslim women. (The organization was started by a remarkable Muslim woman http://www.wafahouse.org/).

My friend and I also pared down the food at our event, serving only foods that had roots in the Quran or prophetic tradition. We put little cards next to each dish, explaining the food's significance. It was amazing. The food was so simple, yet delicious and filling. I'm posting a few pictures of the event below.

Subhan'Allah, when you shift your focus to your ultimate goals in life, your entire scale of what's valuable changes. I want my good deeds, and not my stuff to speak for who I am.

Boston II

I ran into this girl during one of the breaks in the MAS program at the ISBCC. I started out asking her the usual...where she's from, what she does, etc. She told me she was from Virginia, and she worked in Boston.
"Oh, so you must miss your family," I told her knowingly."
"No, I see them almost every week."
"Really, so you don't have to spend much time up here for work."
"No, I'm here during the week."
"Okay..." She must have seen the confused look on my face.
"I commute ten hours from Virginia to Boston every week."
"Ten hours! That must be so hard!"
"Hamdellah."
"I mean, I can barely tolerate commuting an hour for my work!"
"Hamdellah, it's okay."
"But don't you get bored?"
"Hamdellah."
"Sleepy?"
"Hamdellah."
"Lonely?"
"Hamdellah."
What was wrong with this girl? I'm here lathering on my empathetic consolations, and she won't even concede any genuine grumbles or join me in commiserating. What gives?
"Okay, do you want me to tell you?" she said.
I said yes. And she began to tell me how one day last summer she was crossing the street, and she was hit by a van. She told me that she was hospitalized, with a coma. And when she woke up she was unable to move any part of her body. She said her jaw was so swollen, she couldn't even move her tongue. And because the doctors wanted the swelling in her eye to go down, they taped one of them open. Imagine trying to sleep with your eye taped open. She told me how no one thought she would walk again, and how she couldn't feel the tips of her fingers or toes. And now she was sitting in front of me, talking and moving around as if nothing ever happened.
"So I have no reason to complain, alhamdulilah," she said, "Every time I blink I remember how much Allah has blessed me."
I was so inspired by what this girl had said. I realized how easily complaints would leak from my mouth. I still haven't fully realized all the lessons my own trial was meant to teach. I feel that Allah (SWT) put this girl in my path as a gentle reminder- not only of how much I have to be grateful for, but also of how little I have to complain about. Alhamdulilah.

Boston

My husband and I went to Boston this weekend. He was invited to speak at a MAS event held at the city's new mammoth masjid, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. Two gracious Bostonians hosted us at their home for the weekend.

Before my surgery and diagnosis, I would have never accepted an offer to stay at someone I barely knew's home. There's no good reason why I wouldn't. I just never wanted to run the risk of being uncomfortable, or chance an awkward situation...

And something odd did happened while we were there. For the first time, I woke up in the morning and did not think of my disease.

After hearing my diagnosis, it seemed impossible each morning to wake up without thinking of it. I remember about a month ago, I would actually wake up mentally repeating the words, "malignant melanoma" over and over, as if I was doing tasbeeh. There were also some days I would rise unbothered, and then the recollection of my diagnosis would hit me, and it would feel like someone lobbed an anvil at my stomach.

I came to think of processing all the negative thoughts in the mornings as work. It would vary though. Sometimes I would wake up and feel like there was a huge stack of paperwork I had to work through...
"I am going to die... But everyone's going to die"
"The doctor said this is a 'devastating disease...' But Allah's will is greater than what any doctors says."
"What if it's overtaking my body right now?... Then try to accomplish what you can today."

And some mornings the thoughts were far less intrusive, like a small post-it note to be looked at briefly, then disregarded. But there was never a time when I woke up and the thought of my disease was entirely absent- until Boston.

Not that I didn't think of it all weekend. The organizers of the event broke the attendees up into groups at the start of the weekend, and then held small get-to-know each other sessions. Each time it was my turn to talk, I would hold my disease at the tip of my tongue, unsure if it was okay to unload such a hefty, personal factoid on unassuming event-goers. In the end, I just couldn't do it. I didn't want the lovely girls I was slowly befriending to suddenly start treating me with gratuitous sympathy.

25 Things About Me

I was tagged far too many times to avoid doing this. I'm just going to post it here because I couldn't choose just 25 people to tag.


1. My mother is the wisest person I know. I feel flattered when my husband calls me mini-Fadiah. \

2. I used to be able to do a headstand for as long as anyone was willing to watch. My mom used to have me do headstands for my younger sister Jude, while my mom force-fed her.

3. My favorite number is 3.

4. I am a terrible speller. Actually, up until 5th grade, I was a pretty terrible reader too. Oddly enough, I seem to excel at grammar.

5. As a child, my life goal was to a) be Alaa El-Buri, b) own all of Alaa El-Buri's possessions, or c) have blue eyes.

6. I often think I don't deserve my husband.

7. I have an unhealthy obsession with interior decorating. I went almost two years without curtains in my living room because I was holding out for curtains I really loved.

8. I hate it when people don't hustle. One of the most difficult things for me after my surgery was not being able to walk fast. Also, it is exceedingly bothersome when cars leave giant gaps during my commute, and allow other cars to sneak in front. I sometimes keep a mental count of how many cars behind I am during my commute because of gaps. Move people! That being said, I eat reeeaally slooow.

9. I don't enjoy talking on the phone, and I'm terrible at keeping in touch.

10. I feel like Allah (SWT) blessed me with the best of everything in life: the best mother, the best in-laws, the best friends, the best community, the best education, etc.

11. I can be extremely critical.

12. I once swallowed a giant bead in elementary school after a kid on the bus promised me $5. He never paid me.

13. I used to be the biggest procrastinator until I got married. Now I stay on top of everything.

14. I love to entertain, especially setting the table. Sometimes when I'm having a dinner party, I will first think of which plates I want to use, and then invite people based on how many plates I have in that set. It's sad, I know.

15. It took getting a deadly disease for me to finally be content with my body.

16. I know how to drive stick, but I do not know how to parallel park. Seriously, the woman who administered my driving test gave me step-by-step instructions..."Turn your wheel all the way to the left. Okay, now start reversing." I pray to God I don't have to retake the driving exam to get my New Jersey license.

17. My favorite ayah is, "Verily in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest!" (13:28)

18. I hate gum. I think it should be banned.

19. I love people intensely.

20. I used to be the pickiest eater in my family. When visiting Saudia I survived on a strict diet of mangoes and yogurt. But now I'm the most adventurous eater in the family.

21. I love Arabic names. I like finding out what they mean, and pretending to hoard them for my future kids.

22. I choose which grocery store to shop at based on its lighting. Fruits just look so much more delectable under the right light.

23. These past few months I've felt like a president leaving office, trying to figure out my lasting legacy.

24. I love pumpkin everything...especially pumpkin cheesecake.

25. I believe intentions are the most important thing in life. I fear I will fall into this group of people described in Surat Al-Kahf, "Say, 'shall I tell you. Whose actions are worst? Those whose struggles were lost in the life of the world, and they imagine that they are doing good work."

Petscan

I went to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Friday for a petscan. Like so many other of the waiting rooms I've visited the past few months, it was filled old people leaning on canes, and hacking away. I'm always a little struck by how much my youth stands out among my fellow cancer patients.

It's odd, but I'm no stranger to these situations. I feel like my young adult life has prepared me for being the novice in the room. My mom used to take me and my sisters to protests and lectures before I even knew what words like "embargo" or "sanctions" meant. We had to clean our rooms before we were allowed to go to whatever event Peaceworks was putting on. I remember being shocked my classmates had never been to a demonstration...what exactly did they do on Saturday afternoons?

As my sisters and I grew older, we each took turns seizing the reigns of community activism. I remember things like giving a talk at the masjid to a group of police officers, trying to flex my freshman vocabulary, or discussing politics with a bunch of hippies at an Amnesty meeting- pretending I was as equally as outraged over the School of the Americas. I ate cheese and crackers, and mingled with the graying interfaith crowd, and tried my hand at being the only hijabi television reporter among over-makeuped, self-proclaimed local hotshots. In many ways, I've spent my entire life mildly at home with awkward situations. And now I'm sitting among yet another bunch of out-of-my-leaguers.

It all reminds of the hadith of the prophet, "Be in this world as though you were a stranger or a traveler." I pray that my life experiences afford me the honor of attaining the stranger status intended by this hadith.

The petscan was schedule for 1 pm. Zaied had to go to Friday prayer, so I was left in the waiting room without entertainment. At first I tried to complete my morning thikr, but I keep getting distracted by the nurse coming in to take in the next patient. Then I start playing this sick game of looking at the couples in the waiting room, and trying to guess which member of the couple was the cancer patient. Is it the husband? His wife seems to be leaning into him, trying to assure him things are okay. Wrong. Here comes the wife's father from the examination room, looking pale and using his other family members to help him walk. I reprimand myself for playing this morbid game. I wonder if other people in the waiting room were amusing themselves with similar mindgames. What were they thinking of me?...especially after I had just prayed in the main hallway. I don't know why my mind travels to these places when left alone, but maybe this silly diversion makes me feel like I'm an observer, and not a participant.

The Sick

Last night my husband, some of his family and I went to visit my dear friend's husband in the hospital. Her husband had just had an operation the day before. The brother was so weak, and had tubes in every which place. It all reminded me of my operation, and how vulnerable you can get when you are ill. It was almost surreal walking into the room and not being the bedridden one.

I love the hadith that says on the Day of Judgment Allah will say, “O son of Adam I was sick and you did not visit Me. He will say: O Lord how can I visit You? You are the Lord of the worlds. Allah says: Did you not know that My servant so and so was sick yet you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him you would have found Me with him?” Visiting someone who is sick is such a beautifully healing experience for everyone involved- not that there aren't some unpleasantries...

For the most part I loved when people would come visit me. But sometimes I just wanted to close my eyes and wanted everyone to be gone when I opened them. Subhan'Allah, our religion makes so much practical sense. As Muslims, the etiquette of visiting a sick person includes keeping the visit short. It was also very difficult for me to talk after my surgery. Sometimes my mother or husband would tell visitors not to let me talk, and then as soon as the visitor would see me, she'd say, "So, tell me how you're doing."

Visiting someone who's ill can be so delicate... you don't want to do or say anything improper. I remember feeling so unsure about how to behave when I'd go see someone who was seriously ill- and now I am that person. I feel like I wither under people's pity. Pity is different from sympathy or compassion- okay, quick dictionary check shows it's not that different, but it feels different, at least to me. When people approach me with pity, they act as if all is lost. They treat me as if I'm a non-being, and reduce me to my disease...I am the girl with cancer. I wonder now if I've ever treated anyone that way. I've always identified myself as a Muslim, or as a journalist, or as a Midwesterner- a "Columbia girl," or more recently, as Zaied Abbassi's wife. It was so difficult to have a new identity imposed upon me, and to have that identity overshadow all else.
Now when I meet new people or someone comes to visit I wonder how much they've heard.

Mostly what I wanted when people visited me was to be reminded of Allah (SWT). People who are sick are blessed with a reminder of what is truly important in life. When my husband and I were leaving the hospital after visiting the brother, my husband turned to me and said, "Man, I just needed to get out of there. I couldn't take being back in that situation...watching everyone just stand around someone who's so sick and stare." It's true. The staring could get pretty uncomfortable, but so was the overt eye-contact dodging. The truth is, there were lots of small things that peeved me while I was in the hospital, but in the end I knew people had the best intentions, and were truly concerned. I know that each person who goes through a trial is an individual, and has individual preferences...maybe some people out there enjoy being stared at. And perhaps all the small annoyances are just part of the test.

Test Results

I recently received results from two important tests. The first one was a pathology report on a mole that was removed from my neck three years ago when I was in Missouri. (I think it was my friend Sameera who asked how they still had my mole from three years ago...she said somewhere they must have a storage room full of moles...that really made me laugh. They actually hang on to slides from the mole though).

Anyway, the pathologists at Sloan Kettering and Hackensack both think that the mole was the primary source of the melanoma, wallahu a3lam. What they think that means is that the tumor they found on my lung was a metastasis... meaning it spread to the lung, and the lung was not the primary source of the melanoma. The doctors have said a few things about what the implications of this are, none of ther comments are very encouraging, but alhamdulilah. They think that means the melanoma has gone through the bloodstream, and could potentially be anywhere in the body. I pray Allah (SWT) cleanses me from this disease completely, and I know nothing is beyond His abilities.

There's so much irony in all of this. Subhan'Allah, three years ago, when I had the mole removed the doctor told me there was something a bit unusual about the mole, and that he'd like to take a bigger sample from the skin around the mole. I never went back to the doctor because the mole removal was such an unpleasant experience. Subhan'Allah, I am always getting on my husband's case for not following up on things, and this was one of the few things that he had pushed me to follow up on...and I didn't.

The other results I received came from the catscan I had on Thursday. Alhamdulilah, the catscan did not show any visible growths or abnormal tissue. Insha'allah the doctors are going to try to monitor me closely with regular cat and pet scans. I am going to try to do my due diligence, and insha'allah rely on Allah for the rest.

Waiting

This morning I called Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to see if they had the results from the catscan I took on Thursday. I could hear the woman who answered my call pulling up my record, and then she said, "Oh, I have the report right here. I'll have a nurse call you to discuss it." ahhhh... I want to tell her wait... is this protocol for all the catscan reports or do you only do this when there's bad news? What a tease.

So much of what I'm going through is waiting- waiting for the results of the first pathology reports...waiting for the second opinion, waiting for the results of the MRI, waiting for the results of the petscan, waiting to see if my mole was the primary source... waiting for nurses to get back to me. It was such an emotional roller coaster allowing my hopes and fears to hinge on the results of tests and the opinions of doctors. At some point I realized that I was putting my mental well-being in the hands of doctors who may or may not really care about me. If I put my faith, and my mental well-being in the hands of Allah (SWT), whatever the doctors tell me can't shake me. Alhamdulilah, Allah (SWT) has taken care of me thus far in my life...even when I wasn't always thankful, or acting in a way that pleased Him, He still blessed me with a good family, an education, a wonderful husband, a job... I have no reason to believe He won't take care of me now, He is after all, more merciful toward us than a mother is toward her child.

In the meantime, I was wasting my precious time waiting. I have to constantly remind myself that I can either rot while waiting for results, or I can try to continue on while waiting for results, and try to benefit others- either way I'm going to have to endure the wait.

Acceptance

I know I ended my last post pretty abruptly. At the time I was writing it, going through the play by play was difficult.

It took me about three days to accept my death. On the first day, as you read, my mind was in chaos. On the second day, I was numb. And on the third day, my husband and mother began talking sense to me, and I finally came to some important realizations:

1. We are all going to die. The people who took the news of my disease calmly and those who panicked- they are going to die one day too. Death is one of the few realities we can be certain of in this life, and yet we somehow slip into thinking that we are exempt.

2. We live this life for the next. I was living my life as a Muslim...praying and fasting, but I had somehow allowed my real goal in life to be swallowed by buying salad plates for my next dinner party, and trying to get free shipping on my next jcrew order, and finding pillows that popped against my cream sofa. In between being a consumer and entertaining myself to death, I let what really matters in my life slip away from me. If I was truly living my life for the Hereafter, I should not be so fearful of the future I had created for myself. The Quran says, "And this life of the world is nothing but a sport and a play; and as for the next abode, that most surely is the life- did they but know!" [29.64] I was listening to an Anwar Awlaqi lecture and he was talking about the ayah in the Quran where Allah says, "Wala tansa naseebaka fil dunia" or "do not forget your portion in this world..." Shaikh Anwar was saying that so many of us live our lives only by this portion of the ayah... trying to scrape what we can of our portions in this world, and doing what we can for the Hereafter along the way. In reality, we should be living our for the Hereafter, and doing things for this dunia along the way. The entire ayah says, "But seek, with the (wealth) which Allah has bestowed on thee, the Home of the Hereafter, nor forget thy portion in this world: but do thou good, as Allah has been good to thee, and seek not (occasions for) mischief in the land: for Allah loves not those who do mischief." [28:77].

3. I am in the same boat as everyone else. None of us are given any guarantees in life. Our health, our wealth, and our families are trusts give to us by Allah- and they are His to take when He, in his infinite wisdom, deems fit. We all claim to believe this, but in practice we often falter. I don't know why I thought I could push the thought of death out of my mind for at least a good 30 or 40 years. Allah (SWT) could claim any of us at any time. I am in the same boat as everyone else- I have no idea when my time is, but I should try to live everyday as if it is my last.

4. Each day is a gift. Receiving this wake up call is such a blessing in that each day Allah grants me is an opportunity to do some more good and try to make up for some of the mistakes I made in the past. For some reason, the mornings are usually a little rough for me. I think it's just waking up from my dreams and realizing that I still have to live with this disease. But every morning I try to tell myself, "Alhamdulilah, I feel good today, what good can I do today?"

These realizations, and the support of my mother, husband, his mother, my sisters, his sisters, my father, his father, my friends, and my community have helped me not merely cope with what I'm going through, but actually seek the reward of going through this trial, and try to sincerely accept what Allah wills for me.