For Hedu: The Alchemy of Love Persevering

She heard a voice calling her that evening

telling her it was time to go

that she couldn’t stay in her childhood home

where she had known endless love

or even in the body that had been her cage

 

She knew that voice well

listened to its call in the moon-quiet hours

and for the first time, she agreed

 

Tension eased from her muscles

worldly yearnings faded with her breath

as her beloved family cried around her

she sensed their loving touch on her skin

felt them tremble, marooned in their grief

heard their loud prayers and silent thoughts

 

Then began the nightly pilgrimages to her home

Her mother, father and sister sat with their loss

with tasbihs in their hands, her pictures on the wall

her stories on their lips, hearts pained with love

Her own love surged through the cosmos to protect them

As they had always protected her, cocooned her

 

She didn’t think of her illness or how she might have lived

She thought of how her mother had rocked her to sleep

The bounce of those knees in crowded mehndi halls

rice and janjaro scooped into her mouth

She thought of her father at the volleyball net at sport festivals

of his kind face above hers, the twinkle in his eyes

 

She thought of her sister’s tiny footsteps and sweet sibling laughter

music parties and masti with cousins, aunties and uncles

dots of oud and shared mirrors, whispered secrets and imagined futures

both wearing green and red scarfs over white shirts

how they had grown from girls into women

how that very sister tended to her with a doctor’s hands

—a parent’s hands

 

She thought of her adored tattooed grandmother

who waited to welcome her to the light, and

of devouring chapatis and chasing chickens under a hot sun

The joy of clothes and swooning over boys at mission class

The brown school uniform and her love of languages

And the celebration days—why couldn’t there have been more celebration days?

 

Most of all, she thought about how the love of three people

saved her, cherished her, kept her in her body

far longer than she otherwise would have stayed

Those three people, and a host of others, more precious

to her than a thousand stars and that fierce love would remain

through the eternal winds and rain

 

Now it was her turn to stand vigil over them

as their shining capacity for love had surpassed every boundary

through nights when their courage floundered

through days when they opened the treasures of memory

as they found their way through new rhythms of life

The alchemy of love persevering

 

And though it had been the greatest gift

to belong to those three hearts

her soul rejoiced to soar on different plains

–but always with them