written by rehana mushtaq
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Byline” _builder_version=”3.19.1″]photo by molly kay
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.19.1″ custom_padding=”0|0|0|0px|false|false”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0|0px|0|0px|false|false” _builder_version=”3.19.1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.19.1″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.1″ inline_fonts=”Nova Cut,Noto Serif”]In every home I’ve visited, whether an aunt’s, an uncle’s, or a cousin’s, the mantelpiece holds a picture of their ornamental day, the consecration of a union between . The woman dressed in white, ordained in gold, with white flowers in her hair, smiling through the faded image taken long ago. lacquer. A man by her side, dressed in black, stepping forward and holding her hand tight. In my own home, we have a picture of my mother and father posed against lush sky-blue curtains. My mother wears a sari, white and simple, hanging from her thin and model frame, absolutely pristine. My father by her side, slick, posed expectantly. A perfect pair in a perfect image that almost doesn’t seem real. There is no family in sight, nor is there true vestige of a celebration. To reduce my parents’ love to an image constructed as such is deceiving, as their love was paramount to something else entirely.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.19.1″ custom_padding=”38px|0|0|0|false|false”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0|0px|38px|0px|false|false” _builder_version=”3.19.1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.19.1″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_image src=”https://thestrand.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Rehana-by-Molly-Kay-2-of-3.jpg” _builder_version=”3.19.1″][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0|0px|46px|0px|false|false” _builder_version=”3.19.1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.19.1″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.1″]My father and mother eloped in June of 1992. The real pictures of that day were vibrant. My mother and father were dressed in neat, ordinary clothes, and they were shyly smiling, awkwardly beside one another. In my travels to Sri Lanka, I’ve gone into , where those photos were taken. It is adorned with . My father gave it to my mother when she still lived with her brother and his wife, before were married. This sheepish moment bore a vibrancy that they couldn’t have possibly captured in the grandeur of a wedding. It solidified their five years of courtship, from Iraq to Sri Lanka, passing love letters, . Of course, beneath this innocence, there’s more—for an elopement is never just a day of thoughtless glee. Within Sri Lanka, even with its staunch attachment to Buddhism, exists a diverse body of people. My mother is a Christian, my father a Muslim. Although these traditions coexisted, my parents’ decision to bring them together would have been contentious. My parents married in secret to consecrate their love and commitment to one another, but in doing so they left those traditions, embedded and beholden, behind. Immigrating to Canada and bearing two children who were removed from tradition created something else entirely.
In this environment I felt it was impossible to place myself wholly into any surrounding. There was no place for this incoherent energy. An anxiety. A sense of loss and of confusion—an odd divide that has been pulling at my family structure since before I was born. My parents were forced to elope, because what they were together wasn’t considered right by their families and by the norms they were raised with. Now, although they’ve made it as right as possible, it seems we’ve lost something. We rather secular household, but we were still attached to these pieces of a past, as one can only escape one’s past for so long. And yet, we were cut off. I never learned about religion at home, but I was given pieces of it that my parents held onto as artifacts. Never opened, but shoved away in the back of our closet, were a Quran, a taqiyah, and prayer mat. I never knew who brought those items into our home, but they were kept through 18 years and four new houses. Tucked away in my mother’s purse is a pendant of Mary. When I woke up early enough to watch, I could see her light a candle and silently mark herself with the sign of the cross.
Before I went off to university, my mother gave me one of her two golden charms modeled after the Quran; the other she kept. It was smaller than a pinky nail and tied around a thin golden chain. She told me to keep it close to my heart so that I would be protected always. My father had given these to my mother before they were married. The extent of my knowledge on Islam then was a single prayer, the Shahadah. When I was in immense pain, I would and repeat it to myself:
lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh muḥammadun rasūlu llāh
I never felt any connection in a communal service, either in a mosque or a church. There was always a sense of never quite belonging. But there was something about the images: the feeling of stepping into the world of a church, seeing either its grandiose or humble holdings, and touching the holy water and performing my own sign of the cross—I thought of my mother. When I read a book that had prominent Christian imagery, or even when reading the Bible, I found something fulfilling. In my repetition of the Shahadah, I thought of my father. Both parents holding steadfast against whatever storm sprung their way, together. The secularism I had been accustomed to distanced me from the culture and the community, but in those moments I could attain an understanding just by seeing and touching what my parents had let go of. By stopping to take a look at these moments, rather than focusing on what has been lost, I now see something else. I see the perseverance of my mother and father’s spirit, vibrant and daring to hold onto what they treasured most. In that I see no trepidation, or . I see the power of blood, self-made.
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