My Third Year in an Upstate New York College as a Muslim

 "Papa's dead." I hear through the phone.

"What?" 

"Papa's dead!"

"Baba?"

"Papa."

Papa. My uncle. Not my father, Baba. I rush out of my dorm room and go into the dorm's lounge and close the door. It is currently 3 in the morning. 

"How am I supposed to go to class and act like everything is fine?" I sob through the phone. 

And yet, I carry myself back to bed, wake up 4 hours later, brush my teeth, hair, spray perfume, and change into clothes for the second day of classes. When I finally look at the phone again, there are a slew of messages:

Baba's in the hospital. 

He won't stop remembering Papa and he keeps crying and his blood pressure gets higher. 

What?

OMG

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Inna Illehe wa Inna Rajeoon. Assalamualaikum everyone. I have heard that Papa has passed away last night. {R} and {F}, I am so sorry for your loss. Papa was a great man who is definitely in Jannah. 

Ameen

Ameen

Ameen sum ameen

Inna illehe wa inna rajeoon ameen.

My heart rate spikes. Meanwhile, my professor is outlining the syllabus and course schedule. I try to focus, and while I can compartmentalize to focus, the ringing in my ears is deafening. My dad's in the hospital and my uncle is dead. I should be wailing, crying, unable to move. Am I heartless? I head to the next class and after that I head to my campus's counseling center. I may not be able to be there with my family, but I know I can't process this grief alone. After setting up an appointment, I hurriedly rush back to my dorm and call my mom. "Assalamualaikum Hidaya, what's wrong?" " Waalaikum Assalam, how's Baba?" I panickedly replied. "His blood pressure is lowering, but he just keeps remembering and crying. How was your first day?" 

After a few months of talking to my counselor, going to my Papa's funeral via videocall, my roommate leaving from stressful deadlines, and dealing with schoolwork, I genuinely thought I was doing better. Until midterm grades came out for the semester. One of my professors called on me to talk to them after class. She had known me for a while, and asked "What happened to you? you don't smile as much as you used to, laugh as much as you used to, are you not interested in the class. What happened?" And I just exploded. What I said: "My uncle passed away and it's been really hard to focus. I thought I was doing better but it's so difficult to." What she heard: "My (sob) died and it's been (continuous sobbing)." Her eyes widen asking me "who died?! who?!" Eventually she must have realized I was crying too much to give her any answers, so she just hugged me and said that it was okay. eventually I moved on from this event and did... alright by the end of the semester. my grades were less than stellar, but at least I passed. 

    By that time, there was another hurdle in place: The U.S. Presidential Election. For those that may not know, I am a Pakistani American Muslim Woman. I am what American media has hated for the past 23.5+ years. Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump won, it wasn't going to be good news for me. But the morning of the election was what scared me. While I myself wasn't targeted, a large amount of Black American students were sent text messages from a random number telling them that "they were chosen to pick cotton". And even though I was telling my mom, my family, even my counselor that during these 4 years I was going to stay quiet about politics for my safety, something flipped in me. I became more outspoken about my beliefs, was more updated to what was happening in Washington D.C., I was telling people that Trump should be in a retirement home, not The White House. Maybe it was a dumb idea, reckless, and irresponsible. Maybe I realized that speaking up was important, necessary to remind people of the real world. I genuinely cannot tell you why I made this decision. Luckily, no harm came to me so far for stating my beliefs. Maybe it's because I don't talk to everyone and anyone. When I heard that one of Trump's 'promises' was to get rid of Muslims, I wasn't the least bit surprised. I didn't forget when 7-8 years ago Trump tried imposing a Muslim ban only to get shut down by the other branches of the government. I told anyone who would listen "It's like putting a crinkly old dollar in a vending machine." And so, I became more and more emboldened to speak. I met people who thought the same as me, or at least respected my beliefs. 

    Then the next semester started. I worked at the greenhouse this year, and for fall semester we had no greenhouse manager for our school's greenhouse. The chair of the department hired five of the students she trusted to take care of the greenhouse; we filled media for the plants (like soil, sand, clay, etc.), managed inventory of supplies, scouted for pests, watered, calibrated the electronic equipment, and locked/opened the greenhouse. By the start of spring semester, we got a new greenhouse manager. We'll call him Mr. K. We got employed back for the semester and we all started working on the weekends. On the second week of the semester, I was told by one of my professors to let Mr. K deal with taking off the bottom of the hanging baskets the Dallas ferns were in. For those that don't know, any plant you buy should have drainage holes in the pot. If it doesn't, don't buy it! Your plant could die from root rot and waterlogging. So, the way that the ferns are is that there is a bottom you can remove to make the drainage holes open. I thought, I can do it and impress Mr. K and make him think I am capable of doing it. Oh boy, I should have just told him to do it. I picked up the ladder which was 3x my height and weight and started teeter-totting it towards the line of Dallas ferns, rubbing it against the front of my body as it moved. I managed to get all the bottoms off the ferns and repeated the teetering towards where the ladder was. I went back to my dorm thinking I had done something right. Until Sunday night when I got this uncontrollable pain in my chest. Having a history of heart attacks in my family, and living alone made me terrified of the possible outcome. I called my mom, a doctor, and told her about the pain I was feeling in my chest, and we ran some physical tests to check if it was a heart attack. "Bend over, can you breathe fine? Say 'jaw', does it hurt? where do you feel the pain? do you feel pain anywhere else?" My mother then told me to go the campus's wellness center the next day. So, I did. They handed me an ice pack, and I spent the next couple of days laying with the ice pack on my chest. Until the following Wednesday night when I went to bed and felt as if I was laying on a tack. I called up my friend and they drove me to the hospital where I found out what was going on with me; my ribs' and sternum's tissue had inflammation from the action I used to move the ladder. It's called costochondritis. I then went on the rest of the week being excused from work until I got better, drank only chamomile tea, avoided any form of caffeine just in case, and took Advil. But on one Friday night I was on call with my mom crying from the pain. My dad got on the phone. "Come home." "But Baba, my classes"- "Come home." And so, I agreed to come home for the week. I sent emails out to my professors telling what happened and why I wasn't going to be in class for the week. They all wished me a speedy recovery. I went home and saw my doctors and radiologists to get X-rays done and diagnosed naproxen. The friend that drove me to the hospital was the only one to actually check on me during the week. Everyone started asking me questions when I came back. "Where have you been? Are you dead? What happened? Ms. H said you fell off a ladder or something." People asked and texted me. I can't even blame Ms. H for misconstruing the story like that- that does sound like something I would do. But I routinely took the naproxen given to me until I got better and went back to work in late March.

   I proceeded to be fine for the rest of the semester up until the last weeks of April. I was running out of meat. Fast. Being Muslim, I have to eat a special kind of meat called Halal meat. This meat is prepared differently by having all the blood drained out from the meat. I can't eat pork or bacon- those are considered disgusting, dirty animals in the religion of Islam. Normally, I would bring prepared/cooked meat from home every break. But in the spring semester, there is only one school break. Spring break. and that had passed weeks ago. I am studying in a place where I am the only Muslim, so there isn't halal meat available. I spend multiple weekends going to both Walmart and the local grocery store to find a good alternative- fish sticks. I circle the aisle multiple times to not find it there. Then it hits me- Plant-based meat exists. I search for the Impossible chicken nuggets and bring them back to the dorm. after baking them, I took a bite- and they tasted like the real thing. I ate them until the end of the semester (for a week) and moved out of my dorm. Luckily I passed all my classes, pretty well I'd say. 

    With one year left, I still can't believe this is my life. I have grown so much from these experiences in my life, I do not regret these past 3 years of my life spent in upstate New York. I survived. I survived and I will make it out not completely unscathed, but still in one piece. 

    With one last thing to say, I say this: Papa, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you much after I last went to Pakistan 8 years ago. I know I just said I do not regret these past 3 years, but I regret never getting to know you fully. Sometimes I pass by blueberry preserves and remember eating them with Paratha (Pakistani flat fried bread usually eaten with jelly or egg, sometimes can be filled with radish or potato.) When I pick out my cultural clothes, I stop and stare at the Gharara (skirt/pants... hard to describe- look it up!) you designed for me, the organza dupatta hitting me in the face. I hear the hum of a motorcycle on my block and remember the rides to the market we took together. I hesitate to bring you up to Baba. I miss you so very much and know that you are in Jannah (heaven). 

___________________________________________________________________________________Oh my god that was long. I am so sorry for how long it is. I omitted some parts out of just sheer length and dullness, also some privacy. The last installment of this series will be published sometime in December inshallah (If Allah is willing) as hopefully I will be starting an internship during that time. Until then, stay safe! Hidaya Ali Syed signing off.