12 Apr Love or Fear? Choose Wisely…
Fairly early last Sunday night, before heading off to bed, I had requested Damon be on the look out for a tired, crampy, menstruating Samita huddled in a cocoon-like shape in bed in the morning.
“If I’m still in bed at 6:45, could you be so kind and take the boys to school?” I asked, knowing that on the rare occasion I’m asking for assistance, Damon will say yes. It’s always polite to ask even after (especially after) almost a quarter century into a relationship.
“No problem,” Damon replied. “You rest.”
The house phone was ringing and ringing and ringing. Leia answered. My cell phone was buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. No one answered. The house phone was ringing and ringing.
“No, she’s still sleeping,” our daughter’s hushed tones came from down the hallway. “Ummmm…he’s in the shower. Okay, I will,” she finished.
“Sissy, who is that?” I groggily questioned. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Tia,” she was referring to one of my best friends of close to 20 years whom I met at the first school site where I taught, and our bond tightened while both of us were pregnant with twins. “She said there’s some kind of alert for the schools…” her voice trailed off as my heartbeat raced up.
There is no alarm, amount of caffeine, or wake-up call that can jolt you out of bed as the thought of fear – fear that a loved one might be in danger.
“Get me my phone. Now!” I beckoned Leia.
Three missed calls – all from Tia Maribel. She was the counselor at Leia’s school, but Leia was here – in front of me – wide eyed, waiting to see what was going on, what would be my reaction to whatever Tia would share. My boys and her twins were already at the high school.
“Maribel, what’s going on?” I asked in a throaty, my day-is-just-beginning voice.
Maribel explained that there was a message on our school contact phones (our cells and the house), there was a “threat to a local school”, “FBI and local police were involved”, possibly a bomb, maybe a shooting, but a threat none-the-less. The school district decided to be fully transparent and alert all families of the situation, leaving it up to the caregivers to decide whether or not to send their children to school.
“Listen to the message and call me back,” Maribel’s voice came across the other line. “Let me know what you decide.”
I sensed my own fear. I heard Maribel’s voice quaver, usually strong and resilient when at school while donning on her “counselor hat” (as we had joked numerous times).
By now, Damon was dressed and standing in front of me wearing his “Computer Pro2call” logo stitched into his polo, cargo pants (he sure does love pockets!), and a steady look on his face. Everything was so normal for a Monday except…it wasn’t.
Leia still stood off to the side of our bed, her eyes – as steady as her father’s – watching every movement, change of tone, facial feature, energy shift, and response from her parents.
After providing Damon with the intel (it did feel a bit James Bond-esque), we talked out our family unit’s course of action.
We felt the fear dancing all around us, enticing us to wrap our arms around it, and feel the frenzy it provided. In calm voices, we discussed that the best decision for our family was to contact our boys, let them know of this “threat”, and for them to be aware and alert. Leia would go to school with the same reminder.
“Statistically, schools are still one of the safest locations for children,” I reminded Damon and reassured myself.
“Isn’t this the intention of bullies and terrorists,” Damon conferred. “They want us to live in fear and to insulate ourselves from the world. We are not that family,” he declared.
“Hey, Maribel…we decided to send our kids to school,” I wearily spoke. “Yes, I’m scared too.”
Maribel is the daughter of immigrants; migrant workers who placed such an importance on education that all three of their children are college-educated and their grand-children are underway at university as well. Her parents toiled the land so generations after didn’t have to.
I reminded Maribel of her parents and their strength, Damon reminded me of my own resilience, and we both laughed with dark humor at the Jewish people’s fortitude to face fear directly: slavery in Egypt under the Pharaoh, pogroms targeting the Jews throughout history, and the Holocaust.
I kissed Damon and Leia goodbye like I’ve done a thousand times over. Told them to have a great day like I’ve done a thousand times over. Told Leia to “be kind and be safe” like I’ve done a thousand times over. This last phrase I picked up at the kid’s preschool and was an overall measure of how we should treat ourselves and others.
“The fear kept playing music and dancing all around me, but now I was alone…”
My heart was surely going to burst from my chest. The fear kept playing music and dancing all around me, but now I was alone: no Damon, no children, and only the terror to keep me company. The sheer panic summoned me to do what is natural in humans – make a decision based on fear-based emotions. So, I did what I knew was best (after over a decade of therapy, endless hours of meditation and prayer, and an absurd amount of time healing): I invited the fear in.
Where would I be if my paternal grandparents decided that immigrating to the United States was too scary? Seeing as they were in their fifties and sixties, with an estate and servants in Pakistan, living a very privileged existence, surrounded by hundreds of family and friends whom they loved and adored. Yet, the idea of living in a country where future generations were threatened for their views on women’s right, the lack of public education for boys and girls of all social standing, bribery was a measure of morality, and the absence of social justice was not a country that Dada and Dadi respected nor recognized, so they packed their suitcases and left everything and everyone they had ever known.
Where would I be if I decided to follow the marriage path that my elder’s put forth before me as opposed to my own journey? Seeing that no female before – on either side of the family – had ever married someone outside of the faith, unless he converted to Islam, for fear that she would be banished from the tribe, ridiculed behind her back, used as an example of what shouldn’t be done, or seen as an outsider for the rest of her life. Yet, the idea of living in a home or creating a life where my right’s as a woman were subservient to a man, my role in a marriage not equal to my husband’s, or the partnership which I desired to create not available to me – went against everything that I stood for. My family disowned, shamed, judged, and used guilt to scare me back into my box. They decided to dance with fear, meanwhile I packed my belongings and left the day before Damon and I were married knowing that love would get me through.
“There is peace. There is grace. There is light.”
There is no greater dread than knowing that a loved one may or may not be in danger, their life threatened, or they are in harm’s way. I have compassion and understanding for what my family did decades ago: They reacted from a place of terror. When we respond from a place of love, there is a shift. There is peace. There is grace. There is light. Everything aligns itself so we can heal because sitting in silence with love as opposed to dancing in the dark with terror not only sounds better but feels better! You just have to get past the fear. Fear will find other partners to court, dance, and spin into a frenzy. Guided by love breath-to-breath and confronting terror face-to-face is not easy, but finding a place of eternal love and peace while still on this Earth is worth the work.
The three souls Damon and I have the blessing to parent, filled with fear and guided by love, taking a leap of faith high above the Chicago skyline.
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