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In the hot dry wind they congregated, all of them who had come to mourn a patriarch, a husband, a father, a father-in-law, a compatriot, a friend. Dressed in black they gathered, those of them who had come to receive his body and position it in the grave, or to throw a handful of dirt onto the corpse, or to recite from the Quran, or to weep and keen, or to remember and regret, or to wait until after the family has left to shovel in the remaining soil and maneuver the heavy concrete top over the hole. They stood on the barren ground, the lonely area in Livermore surrounded by hills and meadows, rimmed all around by grasses that swayed submissively in the oppressive current. In the distance, the freeway droned and whined. The wind, instead of refreshing them like a cooling breeze, seemed to carry with it a sense of death and despair, of fatalism and endings, of global warming and climate change. The sense of desolation she felt standing there at her father-in-law’s funeral, baking in the heat, irritated by the grit of the blowing dust, holding a black parasol over her mother-in-law’s coiffured white head, was only reinforced by the rectangles of artificial grass placed haphazardly over the graves, graves that she knew hid the remains of real people, beloved mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. 

Like crows in the bleak landscape, they clustered around the grave. Her mother-in-law’s elegant parasol, purchased decades ago in Paris, looked weirdly incongruous in its modish sophistication. They stood in the windswept clearing, among other flat graves, some sporting small slabs of granite perched at their heads with names etched shallowly in metallic silver or gold. At that moment she felt an acute nostalgia for the Victorian graveyards she grew up reading about in books, the ones beside quaint stone churches, covered in moss and grass and ivy, individual names and personal epitaphs carved carefully on heavy headstones, graveyards that, as the resting places for the dead, felt peaceful–snug and familiar. They had visited her British ancestors’ graveyard earlier that year on a family vacation—the differences she couldn’t help but note now intensified her uneasiness in this arid setting. She compared the lush greens with the bleached yellows, and the marble headstones aged into picturesqueness with the slick, modern hardness of the square slabs of granite; she saw how her memory of the decades-old trees, oak and elm and chestnut, which lent charming shadow to the garden of graves, clashed with her present vision of a lone pair of struggling saplings bending in the hot wind and failing to give shade to even one plot; she noticed the difference between the plants flourishing in the damp English earth, climbing up fence and wall and gravestone alike, and the plastic pots of fake flowers tilting precariously on the uneven surface of these gravesites by a motorway.  Here in the glare of the sun with no clouds, no trees, no shade to bring relief, she felt exposed, like a skeleton left to the elements in an indifferent, hostile desert. At this burial ground it seemed like she was trapped in a Salvador Dalí painting, for here the rituals for the dead felt to her artificial and contrived; the cycle of life and death, of ashes to ashes and dust to dust, was denied, replaced by the disinfection of hygiene and civilization, by the flat hard ground, by the cement sides of the narrow cavity, by the small bulldozer waiting nearby to finish the job of covering the body, filling the hole, placing the concrete lid onto the grave with lonely finality.

Minutes earlier, the plain white van had pulled up, a vehicle stark in its practicality, with no sense of tradition, of gravitas, of solemnity. The cardboard coffin had been taken out of the back of the van by mosque men who, at the appropriate moment, opened it to remove the linen-shrouded body. They handed it, as planned beforehand, to her husband and his brother, to the sons of her father-in-law, who took it, careful with respect and love, with outstretched arms, and together laid it gently, face toward Mecca in the East, at the bottom of the grave in which they were standing. She had watched as they both, dressed impeccably in dark suits, timeless and formal in leather shoes and belts, ties and cufflinks, had lowered themselves, as per Muslim custom, into the trench that had been designated their father’s final resting place. At first she had felt the discomfort of unfamiliarity, of foreignness, of strangeness as her husband climbed down into a dirt hole, as the father of her children descended into the ground. But then, as she watched him reach out for his father’s body, sharing its heft and weight with his brother, and saw the gentleness with which they held him, she felt only the beauty of children being the last to handle a parent’s body, to lay it down to rest, to say good-bye with their tenderness and their touch. 

That morning she had kept her own young children from their grandfather’s funeral at the mosque, over an hour away in the East Bay, that the family, not having a community mosque nearby in Palo Alto, had contacted for the service. She had wanted to shelter them, to protect them, to keep sad or disturbing images from taking hold forever in their memories. She had left them with her mother, and had attended the service with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, standing and kneeling and praying in the sound-proofed room behind the section reserved for the men and the imam. She wanted to stand by her husband, as a companion in mourning, as a support in grief, but instead found herself playing that role for his mother. She looked through the thick glass partition separating the men from the women, and watched the cardboard coffin being passed from man to man to land at the front as the imam spoke a eulogy, as the congregation rose and sat, worshipped and prayed together. She followed the movements of her mother-in-law, mimicking her as she stood and knelt and held out her hands, palms up, to her god. The atmosphere in the women’s section, unlike the men’s, was casual and relaxed. Toddlers played with their toys. Little boys and girls ran about at will. Babies slept or fussed. Mothers admonished or called to their children. Part of her enjoyed the warmth and intimacy that came with this informality. Another part of her resented the quiet seriousness that was taken for granted for the men, a solemnity that contrasted with the constant distraction deemed natural for the women. 

The day before, her husband and brother-in-law had left together for the morgue to be coached by an imam through the ritual cleansing of the paternal body. She herself had seen it, but only afterward, when it had been washed and prepared for burial in a simple white shroud, placed in its cardboard box, looking, like a wax doll, shrunken and diminished. Her mother-in-law, overcome with sadness and stress as they gazed at the body, this foreign, unrecognizable figure, faltered where she stood, almost falling to the ground. She rushed to hold her up, to support her, People with such kind of sexual problems get incapability to hold or achieve erection when they are in bed with their partner. tadalafil professional ‘s main task is to increase the flow of blood into the penis. When this happens the cellular respiration will decrease and free get viagra you will be more prone to premature aging and disease. One of the products is the levitra 40 mg InLife alternative smoking device that has been designed to help smokers give up smoking logically and simply. Intercourse gives us sense of belongingness as well as sense female viagra canada of acknowledgement. to squeeze her shoulders tightly as if to say I am here, you are not alone, you will be ok, this too shall pass. At that moment she wondered why she, the daughter-in-law, the non-blood relation, the non-Muslim, the non-Syrian, was performing this duty, and not her husband or his brother, not the widow’s own beloved sons. She could only think that they, too weighed down with their own grief, could not support their mother in hers.

The evening before she had realized that the widow should not be left alone that night, that first night of the death, when her father-in-law had drawn his last breath and been taken away hours later by the coroners in black plastic, the sound of the long zipper closing over the body making the death real, tangible, final. When she shared her concern with her brother-in-law, he reassured her that of course he would stay with his mother, he would not leave her alone. But when the time came for goodnights, she saw her brother-in-law depart with his wife and daughters for his own home a few minutes away and understood that she was the only one left to comfort her mother-in-law, to make sure that she did not sleep alone in the dark master bedroom, on the suddenly empty marital bed, in the room that she had shared for decades with her husband, the room where her husband had died just hours before. Her own husband had already announced his plan to go upstairs to bed, upstairs to where his children lay sleeping, protected from the sight and sounds of their grandfather’s death and their grandmother’s grief by her, their mother. She understood her husband’s need to go upstairs and sleep with his children, away from the bedroom where he had stayed faithfully for hours before and after his father died. 

“Would you like me to stay with you tonight?” she asked her mother-in-law tentatively; they were alone together for the first time after her brother-in-law closed the front door behind him and her husband climbed the stairs to join his sons in their sleep. 

“Oh, would you?” her mother-in-law responded. “I would be most grateful to you!” Her mother-in-law, speaking English as a second language and educated as a doctor in England, still retained a formal syntax even after forty years in California. 

So she found herself lying in the bed of her parents-in-law, trying to fall asleep where her father-in-law used to sleep, feeling the hollow in the mattress carved out over the years by the weight of his large, heavy body. Thankfully, she kept reminding herself as she gazed tensely into the darkness, acutely aware of her mother-in-law’s breathing, her father-in-law didn’t actually die in that bed, in the same exact place where she now lay. She had found one way, however, to mitigate the awkwardness, to alleviate the tension of sleeping in the same bed as her mother-in-law, the mother-in-law who had, in the early years of her marriage to her son, been reserved and cold, who had failed to welcome her into the family, who had not wanted her son to marry her, who had judged her for years, who had constantly compared her to a Syrian, Muslim, Arabic-speaking ideal. She had gone upstairs herself and brought her younger son down to sleep in the middle of the master bed, in between her and her mother-in-law, his grandmother. It soothed her to have him there with her, her son, her child, her baby, young and warm, his breathing steady and his breath sweet.

Before that she had seen her father-in-law just two hours after he died, in his bedroom, on an emergency cot, the sound of the Quran being sung playing throughout. A sound she has learned to find soothing and has always found hauntingly beautiful. It comforted her to know that he died surrounded by that sound, those words, that music. His body then was still big and sturdy and robust. His skin olive and his face ruddy. His hands wide, his limbs full. He lay on his last bed, the wheeled hospital cot that had been brought in for his final days and placed next to his side of the master bed he had slept in for over four decades. He was naked save for a set of diapers that evoked, she was grateful to see, the dignity of a loincloth. She walked in, after sending her children straight upstairs to sleep, to join her husband at his vigil beside his father. Her husband sat on a chair pulled up to the cot, or stood looking down at the body, wiping away his tears and murmuring prayers as he massaged his father’s feet, rubbed his legs, squeezed his hands and arms, smoothed his hair off his forehead, kissed his brow, spoke his love to him. They stood vigil thus, the elder son, saying his good-byes through caress and prayer and she, the daughter-in-law, witnessing him with the body of his father, listening to the melodic recitation of the Quran, holding the back of her husband, the grief-stricken son. 

Only hours earlier, she had been sitting in a local French bistro celebrating her own father’s eighty-third birthday. She sat with her brother and sister, her mother and father, her older son and younger son. Her husband had driven south to his parents’ house several hours prior, called home to be with his father, the father who had been dying for a few weeks, but who today, tonight, might really go. With somewhat of a “just in case” mentality, with sadness tinged with resignation, her husband got into his car alone to make the long drive from their town to his parents’, a drive that took him over the Golden Gate Bridge, past Alcatraz, through San Francisco, by missions and reservoirs. She stayed behind, all of them uncertain as to the timing, the course of events, the future, and wanting to celebrate her father’s continued life on his birthday. She was sitting on the banquette, sandwiched between her children, a son on each side, talking over poached salmon and wild rice, when her cell phone vibrated on the table beside her. She snatched it up right away, on high alert for news from her husband about his father, and listened intently, holding the phone tight to her ear against the noisy hum of the restaurant. 

It had happened.  The patriarch, the husband, the father, the father-in-law, the grandfather, was dead.

“Our eyes will see what had been written on our foreheads.” The Arabs declaim this as an expression of fate: your fate is predetermined; there’s no escape. I leaned toward the mirror—all but my eyes covered with a turquoise face-mask—and I wondered if God had written this day on my forehead, if He did so in Arabic or English, and whether this phrase was mentioned in the Quran.

I thought of when I was a child, an adrift and dejected child, and whether I ever imagined a day such as this one. All my life, I had thought, I’d be searching until I found a place to call home, and now here I was: a twenty-year-old who had been in Canada for a little less than five years, and was attending my citizenship ceremony; my ceremony of finally belonging, of finding home.

I went out of the washroom, after a short episode of rumination, and looked at my twenty-year-old friend, who was staring out of the window. She was wearing a grey sleeping dress and no underwear. I wondered why she wasn’t, since it wasn’t hot at all, and whether or not she would’ve felt as comfortable had I not been a queer man. I also thought of all the times I got called a “faggot” or was threatened with violence for holding a man’s hand, and how much work is still left to do in order to ameliorate the status of queer and trans Canadians.

         “A colonizer of a Croatian descent helping a Libyan become a colonizer,” I said to her, giggling.

         “Yup!” she smiled.

         Later, in line to be admitted into the courtroom for the ceremony, I took a few selfies to ensure that I looked as gorgeous as I could. I was wearing my black prom suit and, what I consider to be, my fancy shoes from three years before; a black tie and a white shirt with black dots, which I purchased two days ahead of the ceremony. In the courtroom, I was so enraptured that I ran out of thoughts, a rare occurrence for my brain. I only gazed at the Canadian flag while smiling at my friend, who took photos of me—ecstasy beaming through her eyes. I did notice, though, the racial diversity among the staff: A Brown hijabi lady welcoming the citizens-to-be, another Brown woman stating the rules of the courtroom and introducing the judge, who, I remarked, is of an Asian descent. So enthusiastic to become a citizen was I that I didn’t even contemplate the political significance of the presence of a non-White judge, and whether he was still confronted with perpetual alienation due to his non-White ethnicity. Does he get asked where he’s really from as he grabs coffee before conducting citizenship ceremonies? Does he even drink coffee? For the best results, make it a sildenafil cialis Continued point to elicit that pain and then giving it a try. This dysfunction is quite common among women and to help those women cialis buy have been manufactured and launched in the drug market in the form of conventional allopathic medicines and chemical based cosmetics. Readiness to 50mg generic viagra travel from on-shore to off-shore sites can be essential for specified positions available. buy viagra cialis There were consumers who could just not get over with the test. I pondered upon none of that until weeks later. In fact, I was even no longer bothered to pledge allegiance to the monarch, for I had comprehended the meaning of the oath in the few months prior to the ceremony: Canada is personified through the queen and, in pledging allegiance to the queen, I’m pledging allegiance to my country.

When the judge spoke, I didn’t pay much attention to his words. All of my strength and focus went toward holding in my tears. I didn’t desire to stream another St. Lawrence. I felt my feet rooted to the ground as I stood for the oath and, later, the anthem, reminding myself that it’s a stolen land with which I fell in love. I repeated the words to the oath in English and French as loudly as I could, and sang the anthem from the bottom of my heart without shedding a tear. I don’t usually mind crying in public; I’ve cried at coffee-shops, buses, and sidewalks. That day, however, I knew that my lachrymose eyes would go on for hours, if I let them be. (I’ve been sobbing ever since, whenever I remember the ceremony or that I now have a home).

Afterwards, I meandered down the sunlit streets of Vancouver alongside my friend, uttering, probably more than I should’ve, as if in an attempt to pronounce to the whole world and, more importantly, myself my new status as a Canadian citizen: “It’s my first time crossing the road as a Canadian citizen.” “My first time looking back at you as a Canadian citizen.” “My first time drinking water as a Canadian.” I reiterated sentences along these lines for hours, even after we took the ferry back home to Victoria, even after I lost myself to the reflection of lights on the immovable waters of the Pacific.

I was born and raised in a country that hated me, and that, despite my intense desire not to hate it, it forced me to hate it, too. At a young age, I realized that hate, just like love, is overwhelming. I immigrated to Canada from Libya with my single mother and two brothers in 2013. The story of how my family ended up here, I feel, is for my mother to tell and I’ve no right to divulge it. I still wonder what my life would’ve been like had I stayed in Libya, envisioning myself like debris of a hideous building or the ghostly remnants of a corpse. It comes to my mind, too, how much more arduous it would’ve been to tread through life as an openly queer man in a country with no respect for human rights in general, let alone sexual minorities.

Canada is not a utopia—we live in anything but a post-racial or gay friendly society—but it’s in no way comparable to the country I was born in and never loved. I’m fully mindful of my privileges as a colonizer and a citizen, and I’ve got so much faith in this country. Canada has hurt and disillusioned me quite a lot, but it had also embraced me long ago and I embraced it back. In spite of, and because of, everything, Canada remains the home I’d been looking for since I was a child.

she finds me awashed, lost /  in the shallow of the prairie 
 boasts slick wet promises / seduces even, my marrow
 strokes my spine / a signal story: 
  
    of fires amidst the desert of Dakhla
    white moths flocked to the flames 
    each wave drawn into the bright
    pinions turned to ash of impulse         
    these one-night butterflies called Leila 
  
 to fly into the flames/ to know the saccharine lick
 for even the moment / though brief of beauty 
 there existed enough light / to yield hot surrender.