Why me?


What About Mars?
May 11, 2006

No more problems says the package
the cure came in, no more
warning labels and the price tag
no longer legible. It began
with flashy children and fast cars
then people started talking
about the leftover stuff
after the move out,
wondered what would happen
to the crystal ball and Japanese flag.
Where to put Mars now?
Whose house next?


Yesterday it was exactly two years ago that I began my exile in my own hometown. The irony of that nearly drove me mad during that bit of winter. I used to cry alot. I mean, alot. Hardly ever in front of anyone though. One day I was crying in the usual old place (the shower) and the kids came into the bathroom and asked if I was okay. They had no idea I used the shower for crying. I cried when I prayed too.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what I was crying about. I believe I was crying about injustice as well as my inability to absorb the new details of our life.

We didn't have anything really. My sister and her friends collected boxes of necessities so that we could have something to call our own. She bought me an extraordinary number of things because I found myself completely unable to tolerate a department store for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. My kids felt the same way about Americans and their shopping habits, the way they move about like automatons. It took me over a year to actually be able to purchase something just because I wanted it. I still have trouble purchasing things. I do it but everytime I do I feel something akin to morning sickness. I don't ever actually throw up but I feel as though I might.

I took very long walks that winter. My new dog Pooch and I would roam up and down the streets and alleys of Warren. It was extremely cold that year, the kind of cold that I remember from my childhood. It snowed alot and that exacerbated the loneliness I felt for my old neighborhood and the people who knew me well without any explanations. It was Christmas and I glided through the festive lights of the new neighborhoods. There was so much sadness that year. No one was really very happy in America. They still aren't but they decorate their lives with trinkets all the same. If it frightens me I have to wonder what it does to them. There is no denial of the massive sense of depression in the American psyche. They have no idea about the suffering of others, the reality of it. It is all a part of reality TV. Real but not real. Nothing is ever real until you've done it yourself and thus far, Americans have suffered very, very little.

Allah had blessed me with this new dog named Pooch. It took forever for us to name him and he was just as much of an exile as we were. He was two years old and must have had a name and try as we might, we couldn't discover it. We tried Bingo, Fido and King. We tried Pancho during Thanksgiving at the beach in Bahia Kino Mexico. His name was Zero for a while but that was more about how we felt than it was about his recent castration. "A name for a dog with no name and no nuts." He and I remain inseparable. I hope I die before he does and I've little doubt he hopes for the same. Fact of the matter is, Allah replaced my old dog that I left behind with a much more sage animal. I just talked to my brother-in-law in Lebanon and he told me all about how Bijou is faring nowdays. He said she finally got herself knocked up but ended up eating two of the three pups who were born terribly disfigured. She lives indoors now with a Nepalese doctor and his wife who work for the United Nations and they treat her very, very well.

At home we (my kids and I) agreed to just not talk at all. And we didn't. We kept peace with ourselves. There was no point in discussing what had happened to us. No point at all. And anyway, we had to discuss it over and over again in public places, at pot lucks, at school and poetry readings. We all agreed that we were tired of our very own story but knew people had a right to know what it was. By January of 2007 I realized I had descended into a very deep depression.

Muslim depression doesn't resemble ordinary depression except for the physical characteristics that define the state of "depression". Poor appetite, inability to concentrate, failure to thrive are only external signs. Internally, it cannot be said that depression actually exists in the heart or mind of a real submitting muslim. There simply isn't such a thing that exists that can in some way be used to excuse any type of behavior that results from the physical effects of shock, trauma, loss, grief, anger. Why is that?

Because suffering is expected. It isn't an "if" but a "when". The story of this world according to Allah, his apostle and his Ahl Bayt is thus far been proved to be true. Most Americans don't know about it and their suffering is the type of suffering one must endure when a diagnosis isn't known yet but only suspected. The prognosis is dire. I'm here to tell you though, the suffering of non-muslims isn't pleasant to muslims. Not at all. It only increases ours ten fold because we know not only the diagnosis and prognosis, but we know the cure. They just don't like the taste of that medicine. They are submitting to Islam unwillingly, suffering consequences although most of them believe they've committed no crime.

So I started to garden and I haven't stopped since. I don't think about any of it there. I just dig and pull and plant and start all over again. I can't get over how Allah puts a whole tree into a seed or how Allah knew that I would need Islam. How on earth did Allah get in touch with me in Arizona so very long ago? "Why me?" Well, why not me. And al'ham'dullila it is me. I'd not trade it for all the wealth in the world.

I feel so sorry for those who don't have it. I really, really do. They must truly be suffering more than I can understand. They suffer more starvation than the most hungry child in the most desperate war zone. It is said that a muslim eats with one intestine and a kafr eats with seven.
Their obesity is their sign. Their drunkeness is a sign. Their genital diseases are their sign. Their arrogance is their sign. Their attachment to material possessions is their sign. To mistake those for something else is simply a lie.

[7.198] And if you invite them to guidance, they do not hear; and you see them looking towards you, yet they do not see.

[5.83] And when they hear what has been revealed to the apostle you will see their eyes overflowing with tears on account of the truth that they recognize; they say: Our Lord! we believe, so write us down with the witnesses (of truth).