Short Story About Fatima

“Fatima. Before you walk into the house, call me so I can come out and warn you before you come in.”

“Okay, is everything okay?”

“No. Something really bad happened.”

It was rainy on this February day. February 24th to be exact, when Hadia, my older sister, had called me the minute I stepped onto the bus. She had a bit of worry and sadness in her voice. I couldn’t help but think of all the bad things it could’ve been but little did I know that it was worse than anything I could’ve imagined. I spent the entire bus ride, coming up with different situations. “Are we moving? Across the world? Again? Is someone hurt?” By the time I reached my house, I was already a nervous wreck. I pull my phone out to call my sister like she had asked me to

She left me.”

I hold onto my mom and let the tears fall down my face as I listened to her continue to repeat “She’s gone”. I begin to cry harder and louder, but my cries are muffled by my mom’s arm. I hold on tight and try to say sorry, but I can’t even get to finish my sentence. I try to steady my crying and when I do, I feel thumps. It’s my mother’s heart, hoping to believe that this isn’t reality. I lay there in my mom’s arms, still continuing to let the tears flow down my

Mom also learned that when she returned, but of course it was much harder for her. It just isn’t good for us, so we mourn and we move on. We don’t forget the ones we lost, we honor them, remember them, and we keep going. So we let ourselves grieve in the way we needed to in order to get through the difficult pain that kept us down. As we started to use this in our lives, we began to cherish the unforgettable moments and try to stay away from the unforgivable regrets we don’t let ourselves forget. I remember all the times I talked to my grandmas in “broken” Urdu and how funny and adorable they both thought it was. I remember all the sweet smiles and warm hugs either one of them gave and I sank in those memories, trying to cry happy tears instead of the sad ones. This was the way I began to feel good again, with happy memories instead of thinking about all the times I could’ve called them on the phone on weekends or how many times I could’ve hugged them while I was there two years ago. I couldn’t fall into that sadness everyday. This was an experience that I needed to learn from, something I needed to grow from. Sure, it wasn’t ideal to lose both grandmas at once and feel twice the pain, but because of that I grew twice as strong. So just know that, you’ll feel so much pain and you will feel terrible but know that you can’t live in that sadness