Pick it out from a pocket full of memories.

[Firstly, some background: This is a memoir that I wrote about an accident that i was in October 2008. Secondly, the gray text is in Arabic, they're short prayers. Lastly, "Jannat" means Heaven. This is about my break from conventional religion/belief. I would also like to add that this was not the only determining factor-- Autumn 2008 was a grim season.]

Shove.

________________________________________________________________________

I

It’s the first Sunday in October. You can hear the pitter-patter of the raindrops against the top of the vehicle. Water smacks metal.

“I’m outside, c’mon,” my dad, says to the phone that I’m on the receiving end of; it always seems to be glued to his face.

I am inside, about to leave the final Forum workday before we go to press. I’ll return in an hour.

“Alright, I’m coming out, drive to the front.”

I promised my teacher I’d come. It’s 11 o’clock. Which also means it’s lunchtime at the Islamic Center of Boston – Wayland—right before the beginning of second class, religion class. Apparently, there’s an important lesson to be taught today…

Bismillahi-marjehah wamursahah,

Inna rabbi laghafur-ar-rahim.

Amin.

We roll out onto the asphalt of Lincoln Road adjacent to Lincoln - Sudbury Regional High School. The tiny silver Toyota is efficient and anything but majestic. I liken it to a gray squirrel, scurrying about the roads, which are covered with orange and red leaves.

I keep thinking that over in my head, it was a normal fall New England day. But things screwed up as we hugged the turn right after Water Row. And then before I could see what happened we hit a telephone pole and rebounded back nearly 100 feet.

II

‘WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!”

I continue yelling at my father.

There’s glass everywhere and although my outcry is a humorous response in retrospect, I am in immense pain. I try to recall what happened seconds earlier. But all I can do is blame my father for the split second my eyes were shut.

“I didn’t, ammu.”

“No, you did.”

They must have been shut for a reason, right? Or else, I’d be blind… Thank you God. At least I’m not dead, right? I’m good, I’ll be fine. Pain is an illusion. None of this is real. It’s only real once I’m there, in Jannat, right?

He says it was a deer. They always blame it on the deer.

“You were on your phone, you were on your phone.”

He’s crying.

I’m crying.

How much time has passed?

It’s funny how I held on to hope. Almost naïve. There can be no moral construct like the one i read about in the Qur’an. That world is unreal.

III

There is blood-drenched glass everywhere. The rain has stopped and the sun is shining through the trees, casting shadows like lace. It seems that an eternity has passed before a car driving by, stops to see the apocalyptic mess that stains the picaresque fall setting and subsequently, calls the paramedics.

“Were you wearing your seatbelt?” asks the paramedic.

My father answers for me, “Yes, I took it off after the accident”

Allah subhanah wa-t-alla? Where are you now?

Somehow they get us out of the crushed silver tin can. A squirrel no longer…

“He was on his phone, I know it, he was on his phone.” I tell my mum in the emergency room.

Apparently, I had blacked out in the ambulance, giving my mum license to think I was being delirious. I’m lying on a stretcher in a hall at Emerson. I call the Forum office from the cellphone that I still have in my pocket.

“I won’t be back for the rest of the day.”

I guess you can call that being delirious. I’m told that my neck is broken—more specifically that my C7 vertebrae is fractured in two places—and I’m being moved to the trauma center at Children’s. But apparently, I’m lucky. The other two options were death or paralysis.

That’s when it started disappearing. My hope, my optimism. And as i lay in the cot at Children’s for a week, unable to move or care for myself, I began to internalize what had happened and in what context.

IV

I forgot about God that day—or the God that I had known before. The God that I had loved so dearly. That’s what this is about, that’s what it did to me.

I couldn’t understand how I could be put through so much pain, nearly death or paralysis after I’d shown my devotion in so many ways. Am I being selfish? Is this a test? No, I think not.

This is life.

One lives life.

This was life: I prayed 5 times a day. I went to Sunday school. I was on the executive board of the Youth Group. I was involved in all sorts of interfaith programs.

The day before the accident I was awake all night praying during the most holy night of the year and then proceeded to help with “Humanitarian Day” sponsored by Islamic Relief [after a night consisting of no sleep aside from the occasional 15-minute power-nap]. I tried to remember God every second of the day.

How could this happen to me? I was doing more than I should have been. A sixteen year old, a perfect devotee. How splendid. What a great poster child!

I tried to remember God every second of the day.

Well, fuck it.

If he can forget his poster child.

She can forget him.

Zaynah Shaikh