the busy griever

this is an extended update about the last few days in my life, my counselor and a few friends told me to write about what happened and i will most likely be babbling, but i know that it will help because writing usually helps me. 

i learned that i lost my grandfather this past thursday, and that he made my mom promise to not tell me until she returned from turkey and could tell me in person and be there when i learned, and that just shows how great and thoughtful he was, and how much he loved me.

i was very close to my grandfather, when i was born, my dad was doing his phd and my mom was still in university, and because we lived fairly close, my grandparents looked after me until i started elementary school. my grandfather would take me out every day, and we would walk and go to parks and mosques and little shops from morning till noon and when i got back i would be tired, happy, and full, and my grandmother would give me a bath and put me to sleep. we had a route that we would follow and certain things we had to do no matter what. for example, after all our walking, when we were finally returning back home, we would visit the mosque next to their house, and we would make a stop at all the water fountains and i would play with the water from each faucet. after i had soaked myself from head to toe playing with the water, we'd make a stop at the small grocery store. it wasn't actually a grocery store though, it only sold fruits and vegetables and from there my grandfather would buy a hand of bananas that i would finish before we reached their house.

when i was talking to my counselor she asked me about my happy memories with him and i realized that all my memories with him were happy. that i had no bad memories with him. none. the ones i have are all filled with love and fun. i always felt good when i was with my grandfather. i felt important and i felt real. i felt loved. i felt cared for. i felt respected. i was beautiful and fierce. i was strong and invincible. and i plan to treasure those feelings. i plan to continue striving towards being a stronger and fiercer person. to make sure i fulfill the potential he saw in me. to make sure that i deserved his faith in me. to make sure that his memory lives on with me.

my grandfather had a lot of plants and he was so in tune with them that they would grow and bloom with his moods and wither and turn away with his discomfort and illnesses. it was like he had put a piece of his soul in the soil of their roots. when my mom first delivered the news to me, i felt a part of me die. but i am not sad over losing the tree within me because the first thing my grandmother said when my mom asked her about me going to college was to not worry because i had deep roots. i have deep roots. deep deep roots enriched with the gift of having my grandfather as my grandfather. strong and grounded and unyielding.

i just really wish i had been there with him. i always thought i would be, because even though i often think about death and how not even a breath is guaranteed to us, i guess i never allowed that thought to touch the people i loved. but i know that he passed away peacefully. he wasn't in pain and suffering, he was at rest. he was doing okay. he welcomed the angel coming to free his soul from his body. he told my mom that he saw two soldiers waiting to escort him. and they told him that they had prepared a banquet for him. and him not having been able to eat for the past two months, hearing that was a good omen for us. he was beautiful my mom said, he looked really peaceful. and so many people came to the funeral and they all had good memories of him. so many people, so many people that he touched. he had done something for every single one of them. he had fixed someone's plumbing problem. he had helped someone with their electricity. he had fed someone. he had given a good piece of advice. that's the kind of person he was. he was very generous and he had a solid character. he did what was right and wasn't afraid of anyone and he had a very admirable moral compass.

i am just really thankful that my faith helps me and i know that God is with me. there are so many things i am grateful for. i am grateful for how my grandfather left us and how hopefully he'll go to heaven. i am grateful for the strength God has given us to bear the sadness. and the will to pray for my grandfather to make his afterlife easy and comfortable. i am grateful that when we die, we don't become nothing. we aren't lost into the void. we just make a transition from the limited to the limitless. we are rid of pain and hurt and are rewarded justly with good things. i am grateful that i have the opportunity to meet with my grandfather once again. to meet with him and be with him eternally. i am grateful that God made us one of the people who had knowledge of Him and who loved Him.

and i know that some people don't look too kindly upon the use of religion and faith when it comes to matters of death and mortality. and while everyone has their own opinions about what happens to us after we die, i am not interested in the pessimistic worldview that i will delve into nonexistence not only physically but also spiritually. not only do i think that this sort of thinking is toxic and unhelpful to a griever, i also think it's a bit absurd. but those thoughts are for another time.

in the end, i hope that i'll live a life that'll make my grandfather proud. please keep him in your prayers.

lots of pondering moments,
~belle

Louis C.K. Thinks He's Smart

I have been trying to find an inconspicuous way to show people how my brain works. To tell them about my general thought process without extending them an invitation that reads, “Please, sit back, relax, and enjoy the wild ride we’ll take through the mind of a 17-year-old.” But at this point, I can no longer hope for discretion, so please, stay for a brief demo.

The oversized shirt is from freshman year. It’s a faded royal blue and has a big picture of a small motor protein on the front. I am sitting on my bed thinking about a few lines from one of Louis C.K’s standups, “As humans, we waste our words. It’s sad. We use words like ‘awesome’ and ‘wonderful’ like they’re candy. […] You use the word ‘amazing’ to describe a sandwich at Wendy’s. What’s going to happen on your wedding day, or when your first child is born? How will you describe it? You already wasted ‘amazing’ on a sandwich.”

When I process what he says, my first impulse is to start an extensive research project about sandwiches. They shouldn’t be as easy to dismiss as that, and I will prove it. A sandwich can be amazing, because in the end, can’t most things? A rock could have heard secrets, absorbed classified information, and witnessed disasters and miracles. And that potential for a story would make the rock amazing.

And, I find it as laughable as it is upsetting that as humanity advances, we start calling our once most prized inventions basic. Combining two slices of bread with meat and spices in between to create a sandwich, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, left us a great legacy. The sandwich is now a subculture in the western world and has also become a verb, expanding our language. But not being able to call a sandwich amazing makes me wonder if there will come a day when we’ll be condemned if we call our VE-DIC (video-enhanced differential interference contrast) light microscopy – which helped us discover kinesin, a motor protein – ‘amazing’ as well.

This little guy (the motor protein) carries cellular cargo that is about 240 times its weight across a little microtubule in every cell in our body. If we think about it in circus terms, a tightrope walker would be carrying two average sized elephants on her back. And to compete with the motor protein, the tightrope walker would also have to be working in complete darkness, have no consciousness and no senses, just little magnets on the soles of her feet to guide her on the rope.

So, every time I make myself a sandwich and then eat it, I think to myself, there are a hundred trillion miniscule circuses in my body working together to help me enjoy my sandwich. To be able to make this sandwich, thousands of people came together. Farmers, marketers, packagers, cashiers, health inspectors, this teenager. The history geek in me nods appreciatively to the science enthusiast while the budding etymologist smiles at my choice of words. My taste buds rejoice in different flavors as my brain supplies a fitting adjective. This sandwich is amazing. 

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Another college essay, I hope you liked it.

~Belle