I drape the black cloak around my body, clutching my chest to grasp the many folds of the chador’s fabric. Running late from work, I discreetly slip into the mosque and find my place amongst the mourning women. The dim light casts shadows over the hunched figures as their outstretched hands plead, implore, beg - the aroma of desperation and dignity clouding the domed space with equal measure. The air is thick with the moisture of tears. The thumping of chests is audible above the chanting. The sounds echo in unison, their vibrations bouncing off even the deepest chambers of the heart. This is Arbaeen, the commemoration marking the end of the forty-day mourning period for the murder of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein by a political tyrant in the year 680, along with his family and companions. This annual pilgrimage to the historical site in Karbala, Iraq draws more than 20 million Muslims. Majlis, or gatherings, are held around the world to mark the date. This year I gathered in Dubai for Arbaeen. And this year, Arbaeen falls on your birthday.

I have always loved how Islam follows the lunar calendar. Not only does my beloved Ramadan arrive ten days or so early each year, but I am able to worship in the context of different seasons and imprint the memory of spirituality across the entire year. In the past I’ve only searched for the moon around Ramadan, eagerly awaiting the crescent to signal the start of the month. While other Islamic holidays have held importance for me, I stumbled to recite all twelve months of the year; I would ask Google to translate between the languages of the Islamic and Gregorian calendars. But this year, since moving to Dubai, I have begun to dream in Mother Nature’s native tongue. There are no traditional seasons in the Emirates - no change of colors in the autumn leaves, no flowers blossoming to usher in spring after the long hibernation of winter. I struggled to feel connected to the Earth beneath my feet until I looked up to the Heavens above me and saw the Moon illuminating the path.

I live in a little cottage by the sea. Every night I shed the day and walk barefoot towards the water. The sun has set so the sand is cool beneath my feet as I cross the beach, but the warm water runs up to greet me. Just as my toes reach to say salaam the sea retreats. And so the dance begins. As I walk into the sea the gentle waves lap against me. My body begins to sway with the rhythm. I sit down into the water and gaze up at the Moon, giving in to her gravitational pull - the tide beckons me deeper into the sea before ushering me back towards the shore. I inhale and exhale with the movement of the water, our breathing in unison. I swim deeper, allowing my feet to lift off the ground. I kick with vigor as I tread water. My heart thumps in my chest as my body realizes its potential; the sea and I are beating as one. I dive under the water to cleanse myself. As I emerge I find the sand beneath my feet, grounding myself in the Earth. With the sea embracing me, I say bismillah, in the name of God, and set my intention for wadu, the ritual ablution before prayer.

And so it was this year in September that, in the dance of the Lunar and the Gregorian calendars, your birthday fell on Arbaeen. It was my 30th birthday this year, right in the middle of Ramadan. The memory of your 30th birthday is still fresh in my mind. It was less than 2 months after we lost you. I was so sick in those first few weeks; the physical pain eventually became unbearable. When I arrived at the emergency room, I collapsed into a wheelchair. I didn’t have the energy to prop my head up as I attempted to incoherently explain my symptoms. My body - and my heart - were limp. The nausea came in unforgiving waves as I lay defeated on the hospital bed, shivering from fever as sharp pain radiated from my lower back. The ultrasound ultimately revealed kidney stones, hardened deposits unable to naturally pass through my system: my body just couldn’t process the grief.

I couldn’t process that you were dead.
I found out while I was eating a Georgetown Cupcake. Disoriented, I sat down on the stoop outside the shop to catch my breath. You lived in the apartment above the shop the summer we first met. I would skip up these very steps to meet you.

I couldn’t process that you had been killed.
There had been a “hit and run incident.” Those were the exact words: you had been killed by a car while riding your bicycle. I had ridden my bicycle to Georgetown Cupcake along the bustling M St. Corridor that morning. I felt a chill down my spine as my mind took a step forward and envisioned a daily commute in which I feared every car killing me. I gently coaxed my mind a step back.

I couldn’t process that you had been murdered.
It didn’t emerge until later that this had not been an accident. By the time I arrived at your townhouse for an informal memorial that evening the details had begun to take shape. Your life had been taken with intention, with planning, and with meticulous precision: you were murdered in an ISIS terrorist attack. I embraced our friends, lingering in the enveloping embrace. The week before I had completed Karamah’s Law & Leadership Summer Program. Its aim was to develop Muslim women’s understanding of Islamic Law, Leadership and Conflict Resolution. The program gave me the vocabulary to embody the Islam that my heart had first been called to all those years ago. I rightfully took my place in the shadow of Khadijah and the tradition of strong women that Islam is built upon. Your murder was a wave I didn’t see coming. It crashed on top of me, knocking me off my feet. Before I could grasp what was happening, the undertow pulled me beneath the water with an unforgiving swiftness. How could a religion I choose to love be so mutilated? Yours is not the first corpse, but it is the first whose hand I’ve held. I was tumbling under the water in every which direction unsure which way was up and and which way was down. My ummah, Muslim community, streched out their hand, but I couldn’t accept it. Their life preserver floated on the surface, out of my reach as I sank deeper. Their heartfelt words, borne out of the personal experience of loss at the hands of extremism and government brutality, filled me with a deep shame that I had the privilege of never knowing this depth of pain before. And so I continued to drown.

So the night of your 30th birthday, because my body would not let me mourn, I smiled and chose to celebrate your life.

I chose to remember how you, a non-Muslim, walked me to the mosque so I didn’t have to walk alone. I chose to remember the bicycle pajamas. I still wear them; they’re frayed now so I can’t sleep in them too often. We found them at a clothing swap in Mt. Pleasant. We had taken the metro to Adams Morgan and walked because it was years before either of us had started regularly riding our bicycle.

I chose to remember the night we walked from your M St. apartment to the Georgetown movie theatre for the midnight premiere of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. We stayed up all night and dreamed of all the places our friendship could take us.

I didn’t realize your birthday would fall on Arbaeen this year. The Islamic calendar isn’t set in clay, it is written by the Moon. And so it is each night she pulls me to the sea to gaze up at her: will the crescent reveal herself tonight or stay hidden one more day? Perhaps my body wanted to linger in denial. I knew that Arbaeen would fall in late September. I knew that your birthday was on September 27th. Yet my body didn’t want to acknowledge that the two could possibly overlap: your birthday is a day for celebration and Arbaeen is a day for mourning. But Arbaeen is also a day for closure, the end of the forty-day mourning period. When did your mourning period end? How could it ever end if my body never allowed it to begin?

I adjust my chador as I find my place on the carpet in the mosque, choosing on this day to surround myself with my ummah. My body begins to sway as it finds its natural rhythm amongst the group of mourning women. As the vibrations in my heart grow stronger, I let out a sob. Muffled at first, then louder and louder still. The wailing around me drowns out my voice, I sink in a sea of grief. My lifeless body drifts, floating downwards until it lands on the seafloor. I feel the weight of the water above me. And yet, I choose to look up. As I open my eyes, through the darkness of the water, I can see the moonlight dancing on the surface. And then I remember I know how to swim