Thank you for eloquently expressing many of the thoughts that grip my mind and my chest but have found no satisfying place for expression.🙏🏽 Thank you for the vulnerability of this connection and may we all find peace as well as realistic steps towards moving forward in this paradox.
Thank you for this beautiful and heartbreaking piece 🧡 I was nodding along to pretty much every sentence. I find the idea of death rather comforting. Not in the “I want to die” sense but just the fact that no matter what we do and no matter how hard we try to cling to life and possessions and people and all the things we hold so dear, each and every one of us will die.
Sonbol, I desperately want to feel like you do about death. To have a level of serenity about it. I think the reason I don't is because I don't feel ready to meet Allah swt. I feel like a huge sinner. My greatest comfort is that I know none of us go to Jannah based on our own deeds but on Allah SWT's mercy.
This writing piece came at the perfect time. I've been feeling so anxious recently and can't seem to pinpoint what it is that's pegging my mind. I think it's exactly this: the fear that today is only temporary and no one knows what tomorrow brings, just as it has been for the people of Gaza, Syria, Sudan, etc. Thank you for this moving essay and for the book recommendation. I will have to give it a try!
You're very welcome. Let me know what you think when you read the book. I think that what's happening in Syria, Gaza, Sudan is so eye-opening for those of us who live with the false sense of certainty as security. And we're so used to feeling so in control of our lives that this drives a massive amount of discomfort.
Noha, your writing is captivating. You had my full attention from the very first line to the end. This is a beautiful piece, and I'm so glad you shared it!
Thank you, hon. I'm really proud of this one and I realized last week that it had been paywalled on the other newsletter so I felt the deep need to share it here.
One of my goals for the new year is 'do not imagine worst case scenarios where the world ends/the people I love die/etc.' Sometimes I forget, or it doesn't fully register, that there are people already living those worst case scenarios.
I literally did this last night, over something personally difficult but really very very small in the grand scheme of things. Had to read to get myself so tired that my mind wouldn't keep spinning out and let me sleep. I'm better this morning, but the struggle is very real.
Thank you for eloquently expressing many of the thoughts that grip my mind and my chest but have found no satisfying place for expression.🙏🏽 Thank you for the vulnerability of this connection and may we all find peace as well as realistic steps towards moving forward in this paradox.
It is such a paradox. It feels utterly insane that it's even happening.
Thank you for this beautiful and heartbreaking piece 🧡 I was nodding along to pretty much every sentence. I find the idea of death rather comforting. Not in the “I want to die” sense but just the fact that no matter what we do and no matter how hard we try to cling to life and possessions and people and all the things we hold so dear, each and every one of us will die.
Sonbol, I desperately want to feel like you do about death. To have a level of serenity about it. I think the reason I don't is because I don't feel ready to meet Allah swt. I feel like a huge sinner. My greatest comfort is that I know none of us go to Jannah based on our own deeds but on Allah SWT's mercy.
I really love this. Thank you 🙏 (And appreciated the reminder of “the city that fun forgot” 😂)
Thanks Natalie! And yes, good old boring Ottawa. I love it so much
This writing piece came at the perfect time. I've been feeling so anxious recently and can't seem to pinpoint what it is that's pegging my mind. I think it's exactly this: the fear that today is only temporary and no one knows what tomorrow brings, just as it has been for the people of Gaza, Syria, Sudan, etc. Thank you for this moving essay and for the book recommendation. I will have to give it a try!
You're very welcome. Let me know what you think when you read the book. I think that what's happening in Syria, Gaza, Sudan is so eye-opening for those of us who live with the false sense of certainty as security. And we're so used to feeling so in control of our lives that this drives a massive amount of discomfort.
Perfection! A beautiful, perfect post about life and death, today and forever. Thank you, Noha. 🤲🏼
Thank you, Tamara.
Thanks for expressing this feeling so well. I have it often too, Noha.
I know you and I are feeling a lot of the same way about all of this, Diana.
Thank you for the reminder.
Thank you, Munira.
Thank you.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Such an incredible and important post. Thank you.
But Ottawa is fun!
Hahahaaa well I know YOU think so... And I agree, but I can see empirically that fun is not exactly the main qualifier lol
Thank you for reminding me.
Thanks Alice 🙏🏽🙏🏽 - It just keeps going and going and I fear we are all moving on with our lives. Which is a travesty in and of itself.
I’m sending well-deserved love to this resonant under-loved essay, which I missed first time around.
Thank you so much Rona. This means the world, truly.
Noha, your writing is captivating. You had my full attention from the very first line to the end. This is a beautiful piece, and I'm so glad you shared it!
Thank you so much, Michelle! I’m touched.
Read once. Read again. Heartbreaking, but still I hope.
Thank you, Elizabeth… I hope too. What is the alternative, really?
Hopelessness, apathy, defeat…all of which are always lurking and more than willing to take over, if we let them.
That’s a good reminder. Thanks for making me feel like even hoping is a good thing.
I wish we didn't ever need to question that, Noha. ❤️
I will be moved to tears by this no matter how many times I read it.
Thank you, hon. I'm really proud of this one and I realized last week that it had been paywalled on the other newsletter so I felt the deep need to share it here.
One of my goals for the new year is 'do not imagine worst case scenarios where the world ends/the people I love die/etc.' Sometimes I forget, or it doesn't fully register, that there are people already living those worst case scenarios.
I literally did this last night, over something personally difficult but really very very small in the grand scheme of things. Had to read to get myself so tired that my mind wouldn't keep spinning out and let me sleep. I'm better this morning, but the struggle is very real.