The first time I had a panic attack, I was maybe 8 or 9. It was the first time I considered the possibility of my mother dying. An aunt of mine had passed earlier in the week and my mother—to spare my childish heart—had explained her dying to me like she went on a long journey and would not be coming back. I spent the rest of the week thinking about why anyone would go and not return and so I started to wonder if my mother could ever leave like that. I've always had an active imagination, and so that night as I waited in the car as my mother bought eggs from a little provision store, I wondered what would happen if she just walked away and left and that's how the panic began.

The thing about fear is that it takes over my senses so completely. Bitter saliva pooled in the back of my mouth; my hearing dimmed and my sight blurred, and all I could see was my mother walking away from me, and there I was, screaming and not saying anything. Just screaming.

I think I was born into the world in a bubble and it only made sense that I walked through the world scared of everything. I'm fearful of being lonely and of not being good enough. I'm scared of words that are not mine and sometimes even those that are. I'm scared of being talked to, of being screamed at, of saying too much, of leaving things unsaid. I'm scared of my mortality, and I’ve always carried the grief of the inevitable mortality of everything else.

For as long as I can remember, my mother dying had been my biggest fear. Every time she was a little under the weather, I saw that image of her walking away. Whenever she dropped me off at school, I would imagine that she would never come back for me. But she always did. Always. Until she didn't.

On February 2nd, 2016, my mother died. I was 13 at the time, and I watched her die. I stayed in that hospital room whilst she fought for her last breath, watching, praying, and hoping that if I watched her, that time would be kinder to her and she would stay, but everything moved dangerously fast and the world did not stop around or beneath me. I did not fear or feel anything at all. All I could think about was how sorry I felt for the both of us. You see, my mother's mother had also just recently passed two months prior, and I realized, whilst watching my mother die, what an awful thing it must be to watch your mother die and not be able to stop it. In that moment, I became my mother, watching her mother die.

I did not know what grief was meant to feel like. I had read about the stages of grief, wanting to be prepared for when it finally got me, and I had spent so long fearful of this exact moment that was right in front of me, and all I wanted to do was sleep. After it happened, I wanted everyone around me to stop talking and go to sleep with me. I wanted to pause everyone's tears and tell them to go to sleep. I thought grief had an identity, a universal way it moved through life. I thought losing a loved one should throw you in a frenzy, a harrowing turmoil, a panic fuelled by pain, and so when all I felt was a sleepy haze, I assumed maybe I just did not love my mother enough to grieve her, that maybe I had used up all my love for her worrying about the worst possible thing to happen.

Nobody talks about how grief could sometimes feel like relief. I had spent a lot of time wondering what I would do if she died. I wondered how I would act and when it actually happened, I felt a slight relief that the wondering would stop. That I would not have to replay the imagination of the depth of my sorrow over and over in my head every night because now I was really in it. Now I could feel all these things I had imagined that I would, but still all I felt was nothing but the overwhelming heaviness of the constant need to be asleep

Eventually, a year later, Grief did come, and she took over my senses completely. She climbed up my spine and into my head, shifting and turning for space, extending her limbs, making a home out of me. She toppled emotions and tossed away memories so she could be comfortable, and I did not fight her. I let Grief do what she wanted because what else could I have done? What is a 14 year-old girl supposed to tell an expansive sadness like that? No?

•••

I am a writer

Those are four words I have spent the better part of the last few years learning how to claim. When I'm asked how long I have been writing, I tell people I wrote my first story about four years ago, in the blinding boredom of lockdown, and to a certain extent, it is kind of true. I have been writing seriously for four years, but telling stories? I have been doing that since I was 7.

I was born into storytelling. I have always been surrounded by stories, written and verbally told alike. There were so many moments of my head on my mother’s lap, her warm hands in my hair as she told me stories of her hometown. My mother owned bookstores, and most of my childhood revolved around those 3 quaint shops where I learnt to read. Hours and hours spent poring over every book in the shops and everything other thing I could get my hands: ingredient lists on cereal cartons, newspapers, manuals... everything

The first story I remember reading was a little 20-page book about an ant who lazed around during the summer, ignoring everyone's advice to store some food for the dry season, and when the dry season came, the ant, stuck with no food in his little hole, died horribly.

I have since come to learn how biologically inaccurate that story was considering ants are social insects, but for some reason, that story really stuck with me, and so the first story a younger me wrote was a story about a cricket whose story was very much like the ant's. In fact, it was practically the same story, except my character was a cricket, and while I went on to write many more little stories I can no longer remember, the image of my mother constantly hunched over the tiny books illustrating whatever animal I had chosen to star in my fantasy remains ever so vivid.

•••

When Grief finally came and settled in my head, I forgot all of it. I forgot the little stories and the little drawings. I forgot my mother's laughter, I forgot her face, and for so long I no longer remembered all the ways I look like her, all the ways I am her. But then I grew, swelling around my grief —giving her the space she needed to be but also leaving enough for myself —and it all came back to me. I began to remember that I am my mother's daughter, a storyteller's storyteller. I am the blood of her blood, the skin of her skin, and I remember all of it now.

I remember the stories and the drawings and little books. I no longer say I just started writing a couple of years ago. I say I've always written, that I've always looked for stories, and I've always told them. Now I want to remember everything about my mother, even the parts I was not there for. My brothers tell me about the letters she sent to my father whilst they were serving the country in different states. They tell me of the words she had for them, and I imagine that they are my words too. My grandpa tells me of the first time he met my mother, and I'm transported there too. I remember her so clearly, so vividly. I see her in my face; I see her in my palms. I tell people I look like my mother, even when they do not ask, because I want them to look at me and know that they're seeing her too. I want more people to know her so I speak of her all the time. I give my characters her names. I tell my little sister of her, of memories she was too young to keep. I make my sister remember her.

But with remembering comes the truckload of sorrow I had tried to escape dealing with, and it is hard. Sorrow comes with remembering the ant story every single time I see an ant. I mourn all the moments I was too young to remember and the years I will never have. I look at my sister, my sweet Halimah who was too young and see all the ways she is my mother too. She is also a writer, the two of us, the flesh of our mother's flesh, her greatest stories.

•••

Now that I'm older and my spirit has expanded, my mind is able to hide from Grief better. But sometimes she is so quiet, I forget about our game of hide and seek. I forget who is hiding and who is doing the counting. I forget that I am meant to be trying out hiding spots. I forget that just because I cannot see her does not mean she cannot see me. It does not mean she has not found me and is not looking at me with that wide sad smile on her face. Grief thinks I'm beautiful and sometimes I hear her crying with me. She says I'm too pretty to be sad, that fine girls don't cry like this. She tells me that I have such pretty lines around my eyes when I laugh. She knows that I have the same ones when I cry.

When Grief finds me, she tickles me from behind, and I cry in response. I want her to stop because the crying hurts, but I also want her to stay because it means I still remember. So she stops when my crying is too loud. She stops when the world has moved too much around me and I'll die if I stay where I am, just crying and crying. So she stops. She holds my hand and tells me that it is my turn to count, and she'll hide. She screams in my face that as long as I keep counting, she'll try to stay hidden, but I know I can't count forever. I know the spaces that she hides in sometimes get too small, and I’ll find her even if I'm still counting. But I start either way.

One

I can hear the sound of her running around, opening up pots and cupboards for a big space

Two

She's reminding me to keep counting. To keep moving away with every count

Three

I can't hear her anymore but I know she's in my house

Four

My house is big and Grief likes to hide till I forget she's there

Five

I'll soon stop counting. I forget these things. I forget that I shouldn't.

The first time I had a panic attack, I was maybe 8 or 9. It was the first time I considered the possibility of my mother dying. An aunt of mine had passed earlier in the week and my mother—to spare my childish heart—had explained her dying to me like she went on a long journey and would not be coming back. I spent the rest of the week thinking about why anyone would go and not return and so I started to wonder if my mother could ever leave like that. I've always had an active imagination, and so that night as I waited in the car as my mother bought eggs from a little provision store, I wondered what would happen if she just walked away and left and that's how the panic began.

The thing about fear is that it takes over my senses so completely. Bitter saliva pooled in the back of my mouth; my hearing dimmed and my sight blurred, and all I could see was my mother walking away from me, and there I was, screaming and not saying anything. Just screaming.

I think I was born into the world in a bubble and it only made sense that I walked through the world scared of everything. I'm fearful of being lonely and of not being good enough. I'm scared of words that are not mine and sometimes even those that are. I'm scared of being talked to, of being screamed at, of saying too much, of leaving things unsaid. I'm scared of my mortality, and I’ve always carried the grief of the inevitable mortality of everything else.

For as long as I can remember, my mother dying had been my biggest fear. Every time she was a little under the weather, I saw that image of her walking away. Whenever she dropped me off at school, I would imagine that she would never come back for me. But she always did. Always. Until she didn't.

On February 2nd, 2016, my mother died. I was 13 at the time, and I watched her die. I stayed in that hospital room whilst she fought for her last breath, watching, praying, and hoping that if I watched her, that time would be kinder to her and she would stay, but everything moved dangerously fast and the world did not stop around or beneath me. I did not fear or feel anything at all. All I could think about was how sorry I felt for the both of us. You see, my mother's mother had also just recently passed two months prior, and I realized, whilst watching my mother die, what an awful thing it must be to watch your mother die and not be able to stop it. In that moment, I became my mother, watching her mother die.

I did not know what grief was meant to feel like. I had read about the stages of grief, wanting to be prepared for when it finally got me, and I had spent so long fearful of this exact moment that was right in front of me, and all I wanted to do was sleep. After it happened, I wanted everyone around me to stop talking and go to sleep with me. I wanted to pause everyone's tears and tell them to go to sleep. I thought grief had an identity, a universal way it moved through life. I thought losing a loved one should throw you in a frenzy, a harrowing turmoil, a panic fuelled by pain, and so when all I felt was a sleepy haze, I assumed maybe I just did not love my mother enough to grieve her, that maybe I had used up all my love for her worrying about the worst possible thing to happen.

Nobody talks about how grief could sometimes feel like relief. I had spent a lot of time wondering what I would do if she died. I wondered how I would act and when it actually happened, I felt a slight relief that the wondering would stop. That I would not have to replay the imagination of the depth of my sorrow over and over in my head every night because now I was really in it. Now I could feel all these things I had imagined that I would, but still all I felt was nothing but the overwhelming heaviness of the constant need to be asleep

Eventually, a year later, Grief did come, and she took over my senses completely. She climbed up my spine and into my head, shifting and turning for space, extending her limbs, making a home out of me. She toppled emotions and tossed away memories so she could be comfortable, and I did not fight her. I let Grief do what she wanted because what else could I have done? What is a 14 year-old girl supposed to tell an expansive sadness like that? No?

•••

I am a writer

Those are four words I have spent the better part of the last few years learning how to claim. When I'm asked how long I have been writing, I tell people I wrote my first story about four years ago, in the blinding boredom of lockdown, and to a certain extent, it is kind of true. I have been writing seriously for four years, but telling stories? I have been doing that since I was 7.

I was born into storytelling. I have always been surrounded by stories, written and verbally told alike. There were so many moments of my head on my mother’s lap, her warm hands in my hair as she told me stories of her hometown. My mother owned bookstores, and most of my childhood revolved around those 3 quaint shops where I learnt to read. Hours and hours spent poring over every book in the shops and everything other thing I could get my hands: ingredient lists on cereal cartons, newspapers, manuals... everything

The first story I remember reading was a little 20-page book about an ant who lazed around during the summer, ignoring everyone's advice to store some food for the dry season, and when the dry season came, the ant, stuck with no food in his little hole, died horribly.

I have since come to learn how biologically inaccurate that story was considering ants are social insects, but for some reason, that story really stuck with me, and so the first story a younger me wrote was a story about a cricket whose story was very much like the ant's. In fact, it was practically the same story, except my character was a cricket, and while I went on to write many more little stories I can no longer remember, the image of my mother constantly hunched over the tiny books illustrating whatever animal I had chosen to star in my fantasy remains ever so vivid.

•••

When Grief finally came and settled in my head, I forgot all of it. I forgot the little stories and the little drawings. I forgot my mother's laughter, I forgot her face, and for so long I no longer remembered all the ways I look like her, all the ways I am her. But then I grew, swelling around my grief —giving her the space she needed to be but also leaving enough for myself —and it all came back to me. I began to remember that I am my mother's daughter, a storyteller's storyteller. I am the blood of her blood, the skin of her skin, and I remember all of it now.

I remember the stories and the drawings and little books. I no longer say I just started writing a couple of years ago. I say I've always written, that I've always looked for stories, and I've always told them. Now I want to remember everything about my mother, even the parts I was not there for. My brothers tell me about the letters she sent to my father whilst they were serving the country in different states. They tell me of the words she had for them, and I imagine that they are my words too. My grandpa tells me of the first time he met my mother, and I'm transported there too. I remember her so clearly, so vividly. I see her in my face; I see her in my palms. I tell people I look like my mother, even when they do not ask, because I want them to look at me and know that they're seeing her too. I want more people to know her so I speak of her all the time. I give my characters her names. I tell my little sister of her, of memories she was too young to keep. I make my sister remember her.

But with remembering comes the truckload of sorrow I had tried to escape dealing with, and it is hard. Sorrow comes with remembering the ant story every single time I see an ant. I mourn all the moments I was too young to remember and the years I will never have. I look at my sister, my sweet Halimah who was too young and see all the ways she is my mother too. She is also a writer, the two of us, the flesh of our mother's flesh, her greatest stories.

•••

Now that I'm older and my spirit has expanded, my mind is able to hide from Grief better. But sometimes she is so quiet, I forget about our game of hide and seek. I forget who is hiding and who is doing the counting. I forget that I am meant to be trying out hiding spots. I forget that just because I cannot see her does not mean she cannot see me. It does not mean she has not found me and is not looking at me with that wide sad smile on her face. Grief thinks I'm beautiful and sometimes I hear her crying with me. She says I'm too pretty to be sad, that fine girls don't cry like this. She tells me that I have such pretty lines around my eyes when I laugh. She knows that I have the same ones when I cry.

When Grief finds me, she tickles me from behind, and I cry in response. I want her to stop because the crying hurts, but I also want her to stay because it means I still remember. So she stops when my crying is too loud. She stops when the world has moved too much around me and I'll die if I stay where I am, just crying and crying. So she stops. She holds my hand and tells me that it is my turn to count, and she'll hide. She screams in my face that as long as I keep counting, she'll try to stay hidden, but I know I can't count forever. I know the spaces that she hides in sometimes get too small, and I’ll find her even if I'm still counting. But I start either way.

One

I can hear the sound of her running around, opening up pots and cupboards for a big space

Two

She's reminding me to keep counting. To keep moving away with every count

Three

I can't hear her anymore but I know she's in my house

Four

My house is big and Grief likes to hide till I forget she's there

Five

I'll soon stop counting. I forget these things. I forget that I shouldn't.