MOSAIC

1.

“Pray for a blessed neighbor,” my mother often says. In the long list of prayers, for someone’s health, someone finding work, my own college acceptance; good neighbors never seem a priority. Nevertheless, I whisper a rushed prayer at the tail end of my sujood, if I remember. 

2.

One Ramadan, everyone in our house falls into a deep slumber, waking up only ten minutes before Iftar. My mother rushes to wash and pit the dates, while I fill glasses with water. The doorbell rings and there is a child holding a teetering tray filled with Iftar delicacies. It is piled high with samosas, pakoras, fruit chaat, biryani, and chicken sandwiches. “Mannsalwa” my mother squeals in gratitude. Mannsalwa, as in the sustenance that was sent down from the Heavens to Moses and his tribe after their exodus.

Later that night, she tears up telling me how after her father suddenly died, her siblings would cheer when neighbors cooked something special and sent a plate of food over; a traditional custom in Pakistani culture to share a portion of your best meal with your neighbor while still hot and fresh. Oftentimes, it was what kept her widowed mother and family of seven fed and full. 

3.

Abu Dharr reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Abu Dharr! If you cook some stew, make a lot of it and fulfill your duty to your neighbors (or divide it among your neighbors)." (Sahih Al-Albani) (Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 114)

In our tiny New Jersey apartment, there’s a designated place in the kitchen with all the dishware lent from our neighbors. It’s an assorted stack of blue flower printed Corningware dishes, and plastic Tupperware with mix-matched lids. There is an unspoken rule that they are to remain there until we cook something equally delicious to fill it with and return.

4.

Before falling asleep, my grandmother paints a story with the brushstrokes of her words. It’s a favorite, the one about the crow and starling. The crow’s house is made of salt and the starling’s house is built of dirt and clay. One day, the starling has guests over and runs out of salt for her rice dish. She sends her daughter to ask the crow for some salt. The crow, selfish as he is, responds, “what would you like me to do, break a wall of my home and give it to you?” The starling apologizes and returns home empty handed. That night it rains, and the crow's home dissolves into a puddle. He shows up at the starling’s door in the morning, drenched, humiliated, and homeless. The starling, always hospitable, makes room for the crow.

It feels like crows surround us in droves, and everyone has a shortage of salt in our neighborhood. Everyone is frantically searching; for love, safety, contentment, craving the missing ingredients promised to make lives complete. An elderly Sikh man on our block rides his bike to his job at the gas station. A recently widowed mother caters trays of Pakistani food from her home to salvage money for rent. An Afghan family of six lives in a one-bedroom apartment next door. A few homes down, a couple is always fighting with the same routine: the man’s booming voice, glass shattering, the woman shrieking, the police arriving at odd hours of the night. The neighborhood children collect leftover abandoned shopping carts, stacking and flipping them over to create makeshift basketball hoops. A teenage girl’s lifeless body is found floating in the community pool, her black hair splayed out. Her family moves two weeks after the incident. No one dares to swim in the pool even years after its reopening, shuddering at her ghost. 

5.

When my mother is diagnosed with cancer, the entire neighborhood mourns with us, and sends well-wishes. The Polish woman, with just as broken English as my mother, sends a bowl of cut up watermelon the color of citrus. This is a language we comfortably share and understand.  The fruit is a stunning yellow honey on the tongue. 

6.

In 1947 my grandfather, Mohammad Saeed, sets out to escape to Pakistan after seeing homes engulfed in flames. 

His wife, my grandmother, has already made the perilous journey with her brother’s family and her two daughters. She is in a refugee camp in Karachi, living inside a tent with other women who have arrived with fewer limbs than they started out with. Someone has lost a brother, a husband, a child, their voice; everyone has lost their home. Even sixty or so years later she tells her grandchildren how she left the house in pristine condition, the reflective silverware still carefully placed in the drawer.

Mohammad does not know if his wife has safely migrated. He will not know until he crosses over himself. He feels himself choking on the smoke from his street. It is a matter of days or seconds when his house will be next. His brother-in-law warned him this would happen, but he did not believe it. He could not believe it. These are rabid mobs, not his neighbors. But he can deny it no longer. 

Mohammad, with his conspicuous name, is unable to buy train tickets to leave. His Hindu neighbor purchases tickets under his own name and hands them to Mohammad. It is this kindness that allows him to escape. They shake hands and pat each other's backs, both repeating how they hope they find new neighbors just as good as the other one. 

7.

On October 14th, 2023 Shaheen cradles her six-year old bloodied son, Wadea. There are too many gashes to close, twenty-six stabbings by their neighbor and landlord, who lives downstairs, to be precise. There is so much blood; she frantically worries which wound should she apply pressure on first? Perhaps the one which is deepest…the one where they migrate to Chicago from Palestine in hopes of a better life. This wound is one that will never be stitched closed. It will pull at the seams stinging every time. Her son reassures her, “Mom, I’m fine.” These are the last words she ever hears from his mouth. His tiny casket is draped in a Palestinian flag. 

8.

Khalil Gibran writes, “Your neighbor is your other self dwelling behind a wall. In understanding, all walls shall fall down.” 

9.

I am seven, swinging my sweaty legs on the balcony when Erika calls her boys over after returning from grocery shopping and gives them icees. She sees me and offers a bright blue one. I take the thin plastic packet, half slush already, with a shy smile. Erika is our upstairs neighbor. She's a single mom with two boys, one thirteen and the other the same age as me. They are latchkey kids, and if they aren’t in school, they are almost always playing outside, even if it is midday in suffocating August heat. It’s the 90’s, after all. 

One day while looking out the window, I see a police car creeping behind the two boys down our street as they dribble a basketball. Even then, without having lived as long as I have now, or formally read about police brutality and racism, I know the boys are in danger. They are steps away from being clawed by the crows’ talons. Everything else is a blur…the last sight I remember is of Erika running down the stairs in a panic, and then her walking back home with her arms tightly intertwined around each of her boys. 

Erika is still spirited and generous. She is a starling from my grandmother’s tale. There is one school night when I have a project due and need construction paper. I remember when it’s too late and all the stores have closed. My mother makes me knock on the upstairs apartment door, asking for paper, like she’s sending me to ask for a cup of sugar or flour. I lightly knock in shame. Erika whisks me inside, and fans out a packet of colorful construction paper from the top shelf of her closet. She tells me to take as many as I need, and there’s glue sticks if I happen to need those too.

The day she moves, the other Black family across the street comes over to say their farewells. Their young daughter is coincidentally also named Erika. We often play with our Barbies together. I watch as the two Erikas embrace each other with shiny eyes, the older Erika promising she will still visit. My mother and I stand outside waving our goodbyes long after the U-Haul truck drives out, hoping the truck might just turn around. My mother squeezes my hand and prays for a new neighbor half as good as Erika. 

10.

When Hurricane Sandy hits, we light candles after seeing tangled power lines amongst shrieking winds. The earth appears to be gurgling up water, and we keep peeling back the carpet to see if any puddles have slithered inside. Our fairly new upstairs neighbor knocks on our door. She tells us if it ever begins flooding, we are welcome to stay with them. That summer our jasmine thrives despite the waterlogged dirt. My grandmother and mother propagate it as a gift for our neighbor.

11.

In 2019 three Syrian American, Muslim college students, Deah, his wife Yusor, and her sister Razan were shot dead by their White neighbor. Headlines read, “Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Shootings: Parking Dispute Eyed in Killings.”

12.
At twenty-four I move out of the apartment complex I learned to walk and ride a bike in and move into my very own townhouse. My grandmother tells me to do two things; play Surah-Al-Baqarah when I first enter and pray for blessed neighbors. I do as she says, while stumbling inside with spilling and dented boxes.

In bitter December, I shovel snow, excavating my car from a white mound. I miss my old neighborhood, where either my brothers would be stuck with this work or other children would come around and offer to shovel for a few bucks. My neighbor, a medical student whose name I still do not know; perhaps Mike or Mark, scrapes his shovel two houses down from me. We nod and wave to each other. Moments later, he brings me a steaming Styrofoam cup. He tells me his girlfriend made some winter tea with honey for me. I think of Deah, Yusor, and Razan. I sip the tea with hot tears streaming down my frosted face. Mike or Mark looks at me puzzled and I am at a loss for words.

13.

Every now and then, my husband will forget to bring back the trash bin from the end of the street back to the front door of our home after the trash is picked up. A day or two goes by, and then like magic the plastic blue container reappears quietly by the side of our porch. Every time my husband thanks me for moving it back. Every time, I nod my head in response and say it wasn't me. “Hmm” he replies with a perplexed smile.

14.

The summer that I am pregnant, bed bound and struggling with vicious morning sickness, the peony plant in our backyard surprisingly flourishes. One evening, I stare out the sliding door, and watch as our left-handed neighbor steps past the screen that divides her patio from ours. I watch her, in her large, brimmed sun hat, as she tugs on the green hose tangled near her feet. A spray of cold-water arches over, sustenance raining down. When I bump into her husband out on a walk, he sees my swelling belly and congratulates me in excitement. “My wife and I were worried about you. We haven’t seen you in your garden” he says. He is an elderly Eritrean man, with a slight stutter. He is always wearing a neatly tucked in button-down even when on walks. His name is Barakah.