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Recognizing Grief: The First Step to Healing

From my heart, I have written a special tribute to anyone facing trauma, loss, or grief.

For anyone going through the motions, keep going.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

                                                                                                        —Merhan Keller

Egyptian Activist, AWRA Member & Model Merhan Keller.

Yes. He died.  And I was furious.

I hated the universe and beyond. But what I didn’t see was that we were both dancing with fate.

I saw in him what I feared in me, and he fueled my rebellion.

What I didn’t realize was that we had everything. Absolutely everything!

We had love, crazy hungry passionate unhinged love!
Blinded, therefore risky. Adventurous. That turned into ‘insane’ mixed with extravagant.

We didn’t want anything to do with the outside world.
We built a beautiful home, a fortress!
We loved our job and shared our passion together.
We traveled the world together.
We had all the glam, all the fun, fame and fortune as they say.
Nothing intimidated us, nothing at all!
And this by itself is a major loss of balance.

Life is not meant to be perfect.
If it ever came close to ‘perfect’ the whole structure falls apart.
We were born to fight to survive, not to have the universe cater to us and spoil us.

Human beings had to be creative, suffer immensely to earn their very existence!

Why? We learnt to build our bodies and muscles! We, humans, figured it out.
We figured out how to be strong, but why? To look good?
But why do we think this looks good? Because it looks strong.
We applaud the person who went through pain to reach this stage to build a strong structure.

It is always the same answer, pain and strength!
Earthquake, fire, famine, drought, Tornado, hurricane.
We had to earn our lives through nothing but suffering and loss.
How would you learn to survive if you are not threatened?
You would think such a messy universe would have enough crumbs, but even ants have to work so hard and labor to earn their simple existence.

Perfect means broken, sufficient is inhuman! Abnormal.
A cancerous cell in a body that poses a threat to other cells must be eliminated!
A domino effect anticipated, so the body fights.
Nature announces war because she failed herself by not keeping balance!
She must fix it. Perfect is the abnormal.
And the abnormal must be abolished because the universe chose democracy over fairness. Majority of votes over mercy.
Don’t ever forget that you are only a tiny part of a massive universe beyond human race.
All the elements of the world get a say in every decision on this planet it is not just you.
This planet is full of beings living in synchronized harmony.
And any breach to the system is a breach to all beings.

Because we had it all, we got wild. We actively went out looking for trouble.
Perfect gets boring, safe and repetitive becomes prude.
Nature has its own way to correct its course.
But we were too strong for mother nature, she couldn’t break us!
With all her mighty powers she still failed to tear us apart.
Gravity lost the battle in our balcony as we danced on the edge. We didn’t fall. We survived.
The motor bike didn’t give in to any of your slick moves we did on the road.
We still survived! The supernatural failed, so God himself had to intervene.
We were too real. Our bond was way too strong to be broken.
We were a force. We birthed a heavenly revolution. We triumphed. We are legends!
It took God, Angels, and Demons to separate our mortal bodies.
Didn’t we want a fairytale?

Now our souls are standing face-to-face gazing at the door that separates our worlds.
I knock, you knock back. And we are still standing.
When the day comes, listen carefully.
I will be calling your name when the rivers flood and the sky comes falling down.
I will be looking for you in every face.
When humanity runs for shelters and prays for mercy, I’ll be in the storm calling your name.
Wait for me by the door, another revolution is underway.

Merhan Keller is an Egyptian Women’s Rights Activist, AWRA Member and Model. She is a vocal advocate for children’s rights, bodily autonomy, and freedom of speech in the MENA region.