I am reminded, in these trying times, of a conversation I had with my father back in 2014. I had lived in Somalia for one year and I was itching to come back to America. My dad didn’t think I was ready because I hadn’t learned everything I needed.
I said “Aabe, I learned af soomaali, I started praying again, and I know that I wasted a lot of good opportunities in America that most people here would die for. In fact, a lot of people risk their lives to make that Mediterranean boat-crossing to Europe just for the chance at a better life. I won’t make the same mistakes this time, Aabe. I promise”
He laughed and said, “I’m glad you learned all that, but that’s not everything. You still need to learn who you are and where you’re from. I can’t put it into words, but I know you’re not ready yet.”
I was sitting in my mom’s bedroom in our rented house in Borama. The sound of my little sisters watching TV in the living room floated in through the door. I was on the floor, head pressed tight to the house phone receiver. It was a special landline that allowed anyone to call you from overseas for free. It was cheaper and more reliable than WhatsApp or Viber, because data costs money, and because the network isn’t always there when you need it.
My mom was on the bed, eavesdropping on the conversation. She knows my dad better than I do, so she knew where this conversation was going. I was panicking inside because I felt that I was wasting my time in Somalia. I thought that the longer I stayed there, the more I would be kept from my destiny. I was itching at the chance to prove myself. Twenty-five years old with nothing to show, I was tired of all the questions I got from locals about what my life was like in America. I had no answers for them, but I knew I couldn’t tell them the truth. Every question I answered came with a long list of justifications. I had to prove why I’d never tasted the quote/unquote American Dream.
They’d ask me things like, “Why didn’t you save money so you could start a business here?”
I’d reply, “Because rent was too expensive and my bills were too high. No matter how hard you work in America, you’ll only ever break even.”
The real answer was: because I didn’t have a job for most of my life & because I was too broken inside to hold one down. I didn’t save money because my only goal was to survive, and to do that, I had to live with my parents after dropping out of college. What’s more shameful: living with your parents & not earning a living, or telling people that you couldn’t fend for yourself because of a serious mental health condition which kept you from living a “normal” life? In Somali culture, both those scenarios are too shameful to confess to, so I bent the truth to get out of shame.
Therapy has taught me that I was too enamored with self-criticism and how others perceived me back then. In many ways, I still am, because that’s the root of my self-identity. But back then, all I could see was how most Somalis thought of the hardships in my life as personal failures, juxtaposed with the false expectation of what life in America was supposed to be like from the eyes of people who had never been there.
It only makes sense that I felt some deep sense of shame, something which compelled me to try and regain my honor. A cognitive dissonance of sorts which told me I needed to go back to America, get a job, go back to school, get married, and prove to the world that I was a serious, responsible individual. And maybe write, too.
Life isn’t so cut-and-dry. I wish it were, but I know that’s not reality. The reality of my life is that I’ve struggled long and hard to come to a place resembling self-acceptance. I still don’t have it on most days, but I’m grateful to Allah that I recognize the importance of fighting for self-love. It is, most assuredly, a fight worth fighting.
Back in the room, I felt my emotions reaching a critical juncture. When I get upset, my voice starts getting louder and louder, although I never notice it. Halfway through a conversation, someone will ask why I’m yelling and that’s when I become aware of how upset I am. I was getting desperate to convince Aabe to see things my way, so I started yelling, hoping it would communicate the uncommunicable.
I told him, “Aabe, I keep getting sick here. My stomach is always on fire and I’ve lost so much weight. None of these clinics know what’s wrong with me. I don’t want to die in Somalia, please let me come back!”
Again, my dad laughed. He has a habit of laughing at the strangest times, may Allah bless him in this life and the next.
He said, “Aabe, don’t you believe in the Qadr of Allah? Your life has a predetermined expiration date. When you reach that date, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world. You will die exactly when and where you were meant to die. So, if you die in Somalia, it was meant to be. And if you came here to America a few weeks before your death, that wouldn’t change the fact that you were meant to die when you got here. When it’s your time to go, you’re gonna go. There is nowhere on this earth that you can escape death or destiny.”
I was dumbfounded and silent as I stared at the wall in front of me. I looked up, through the lightly tinted window and past the granite latticework painted ivory white. I could see that clear blue Somali sky, the fragrant leaves of acacia aldiba trees waving in the afternoon breeze; the brilliantly colored birds flitting past the window, chasing each other as if racing to some unseen finish line.
I had to ask myself: where exactly was I running to, and what did I hope to gain when I reached it? Surely the life of this world was only meant as a pit stop, and none of this will matter to us when we’re standing before Allah, Exalted and Sublime, on Judgement Day. Where we died will have little consequence to us on that Day. All we’ll worry about is if we committed enough good deeds during our time to reach salvation.
I think it’s important to remember that life isn’t guaranteed. As easy as it is to fall into autopilot, to be deluded into thinking we’ll live forever, the reality is that we will not. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Now that we have the specter of death all on our mind, we have no choice but to turn to Allah. We seek guidance. We ask for forgiveness and protection in ways that didn’t seem necessary a few weeks ago. It’s remarkable, really.
I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been as conscious of Allah as I would have liked lately. But that’s the amazing thing about Guidance: we don’t worship Allah because of any willpower on our part. We worship Him because He allows us to. And if we are ungrateful for that Guidance, whatever blessings He bestows on us can certainly be taken away. And when the accounting is finished on that fateful Day, those of us who are guided towards paradise will enter heaven because of His Mercy, not because of our so-called strength. I think that’s beautiful.
May Allah increase us in conviction, sincerity, and piety. May He open the doors of Mercy for us all. And may He protect us and our loved ones during these trying times. And for all those who were destined to leave this world because of this virus, I pray that they have an easy death & are rewarded with the highest level of paradise, Jannatul Firdaws. I pray Allah accepts all of our repentance & allows us to die in a state of Islam, no matter when we die, or where, or how. Allahuma Amiin.