Yeo Writing Prize Winners

First Place 2024

We Are Not Forgotten

Rishi Kapoor, Physician, Palliative Medicine

In June of 2021, my dad was admitted to a hospital in Philadelphia to undergo a rather complicated heart surgery. Previously the first one to the racquet club and disarmingly gregarious at our potluck parties, he was now getting short of breath just walking from his study to the kitchen and falling asleep mid-conversation at those same gatherings. After he reluctantly agreed to investigate the cause of his gradual functional decline, we learned that he had severe mitral and aortic stenosis as well as coronary artery disease. The real troublemaker: a calcified, golf ball sized mass on his mitral valve that was causing such astronomically high pulmonary artery pressures that we couldn’t help but be in awe of how the man was still standing, let alone still taking our two dachshunds for regular walks. It would be no easy fix, but his team and my family felt confident that he would emerge from surgery unscathed, ready to scurry after his grandson, whose due date was incoming a few weeks later. This was not the end; there was still tennis to be played.

I drove him to Philly from our house in New Jersey, along with my mom. We stopped by my apartment in Fitler Square, which I had just moved into with my girlfriend at the time, ready to start my own residency stint in the City of Brotherly Love. He said he liked the décor in our place, in a way that suggested he was proud of me, never one to say that directly. I got us hummus and veggie sandwiches from a café down the street. He sat in an orange chair by the window, wearing his typical comfort outfit: a blue thermal with comfy sweats and a pair of New Balance sneakers. We watched runners going by on the Schuylkill River trail until it was time to leave.

It's funny, the details we remember. The things that slip away.

I dropped them off and looped around to find a parking spot. By the time I met him in his room, he had traded in his outfit for an off-white gown and wrinkled socks. Just like that, my dad, who would wear a three-piece suit to a family gathering just because, whose drawers and closets were filled to the brim with Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and all those other two-name brands that immigrants buy mostly to show they’ve made it, wearing a hospital gown and non-slip socks. My dad, who came here with nothing from India, worked as a janitor in a Burger King to put himself through a graduate program, and somehow had the enterprising audacity to go from that to one day putting three children through medical school. Eating food that was too cold, served on a tray under fluorescent lights, with my mom by his side. Just like during their humble beginnings, munching on free fries (the job had its perks, I guess), their whole lives ahead of them. Nietzsche said it first, I knew it from True Detective – “time is a flat circle.”

My dad, who was larger than life, begging the question: when nature, or fate, or whatever you want to call it comes for us, and our bodies start to break down, is anyone actually larger than life?

Naturally, he had already befriended his roommate. If he was scared, he didn’t show it, at least to me. I had to go build some furniture at my apartment, so after making sure he and my mom were settled, I got ready to leave. I left him a book to help pass the time until the surgery, which would be a few days from then. “Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors,” a book about how Indian cuisine came to be – a mutual joy of food and cooking had really strengthened our bond in the past year or so, especially when I was home during the height of the pandemic. I told him that I’d see him after the surgery, that I’d text or call him the night before. All in all, a casual goodbye, because we would see each other in a few days. There was no doubt, no pause. I actually felt a sense of calm.

I could not see the storm that was coming.

The surgery seemed to technically be a success. But the days went by, and he didn’t wake up. We clung to various ideas – delayed recovery from anesthesia, prolonged time on-pump, Cefepime toxicity. An MRI finally confirmed what we had truly feared, though. Multiple, indeterminate intraoperative strokes consistent with emboli from the heart. There was no chance of neurological recovery. We were roofless in a downpour.

We decided that after the weekend, we would have him taken off the ventilator. The day of, my mom and I drove to the hospital from Jersey. My brothers met us there. We sat in silence most of the way, in a sort of reflective disbelief. I made small talk with a gas station attendant; I got frustrated by the traffic on 95. She asked me if my shoulder was still clicking, I said yes. Mundane moments like that, scattered throughout the surreal haze, reminding me that this was not just some bad dream.

He passed quickly after he was extubated. I held his wrist and felt his pulse slowly fade until it vanished. Just like that, an illustrious life had come to an end. It was July 5. On July 8, just three days later, my nephew was born. Life, death, life again. A pair of eyes closed for the last time, and then a new pair opened for the first. The circle of life, unmistakably revealing itself right before us in the most beautiful, heart-wrenching way. Tears flowed while we took turns holding him in our arms, thinking about the arms that never would; whether these were tears of joy or sadness, we did not bother trying to discern.

The Buddhist teacher Frank Ostaseski, in his book The Five Invitations, writes: “Death, like love, is intimate. And intimacy is the condition of deepest learning.” Here was death, here was love, asking me to reckon with them, to sit with them, to learn from them. So, I tried. Amongst the whirlwind of feelings, I told myself that at least I would stay open to how this could change me.

There was a moment a few weeks later during his memorial service that continues to stick with me to this day. We were at our local temple, where we had set up a picture of his in the front of a large hall and set up rows of chairs. There were no words spoken. We played classical Indian bhajans, or spiritual songs, and invited others to join in quiet reflection. My family sat in front, and when the music began, I closed my eyes. I had no sense of how many people had trickled in behind us; for an hour I was somewhere else entirely. When the music stopped, I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and turned around, admittedly a bit nervous to face whoever had shown up.

I could not have imagined the crowd of people before me.

We had run out of chairs. A sea of familiar faces, many of my friends included, had shown up in remembrance of my dad and in support of us. For all his mystery, for all our disagreements, it was clear as day in this moment – this was a man who loved many and was loved by many in return. His resume virtues, so impressive in their own right, put to shame by his eulogy virtues. It was a moment that completely opened my heart to just how interconnected we all are, what true compassion can look like, and what it means to have a life well lived.

The crowd eventually turned into a line of people who one by one came up to my family, and I was overcome by the feeling that we are all in this together. A platitude that I had heard, maybe even said before, but now I felt it. You have to earn some of those platitudes. This just wasn’t about the people who were in that room. I mean, all of us. I was taken out of my own story and humbled by the recognition that at some point, everyone goes through what I was going through, in some way or the other. Our loved ones get older (if we’re lucky), and eventually, they die. The great equalizer. Kozan Ichikyo said, “empty-handed we enter the world, barefoot we leave it.” What happens in between can be dramatically different for all of us, but our beginnings, and our endings, are the same. We will lose our loved ones, our loved ones will lose us, and all we can do is be there for each other amidst all the pain and the beauty of loss and life. I was tremendously moved. To this day, in a world that keeps trying to divide us, I look to this moment as a reminder that the walls between us are thinner than we think.

I built on this feeling. This is not to say that it was smooth sailing for me from there, but I did feel as if I had some grist for the mill, some grounds for compassion. After all, what is compassion really, if not taking your own life experience and views of the world, and translating it into care for others? Cultivated personal wisdom turned into service. I now feel more empowered than defeated by personal loss and can see it as a way to relate to others who find themselves in a similar position. You live, you learn, you give. The world keeps turning. Like Ram Dass said, “we’re all just walking each other home.” Working in palliative and hospice care, I am fortunate to help others reckon with their own mortality, to ask the big questions, to learn to dwell in the ineffable unknown. I do not take it for granted.

It's been three and a half years. The last time my family got together, my oldest brother sat at the kitchen table with my nephew in his lap, in the chair my dad used to sit in every day. My other brother sat next to him, along with his daughter, my wonderful two-and-a-half-year-old niece. Our family dog, Junior, slept peacefully in the sun, while my mom and I whipped up orange-cardamom pancakes. A portrait of my dad hung next to a wall of pictures, the story of our family through time. His legacy is apparent when I think back on the day of his memorial service; just how loved he was by many in the community. But it’s also apparent in quiet moments like this, even if they are not explicitly in remembrance of him. Our loved ones live on in us, in our lives, every day. The way we carry ourselves. Character traits, bits of our vernacular, mannerisms, both conscious and subconscious. Acts of love, service, beliefs. It’s an ongoing story. We arise from the same ocean, we’re just different waves that pop up, meeting the shore eventually, only to be taken up by the ocean once again.

In the past couple of years, I started using my dad’s old film camera – a sturdy, fully mechanical Nikon FM2 that I have come to know and love. I had never once used this before he died, intimidated by its knobs and lenses. Now, I can barely leave the house without it. This past Christmas, I gave my brothers framed pictures of them with their kids, moments I had captured with the very same Nikon he used to photograph us when we were growing up. Three generations bound in a single act. Who knows where this camera will end up, how long these pictures will stay in our family, what these snapshots may inspire in his grandchildren. And so, he lives on in a way that he never could have seen. I find comfort in appreciating this. We don’t need to change the world for our stories to continue. The waves of what we do or say in our lives outlast us, their ripples will reach people and places beyond our imaginations. When we see ourselves and our place in the world in this way, what seems finite can feel boundless.

I keep my dad’s last rhythm strip in my backpack, in the same pocket that I keep his camera. A tangible reminder that when someone’s heart stops beating, you don’t stop carrying them with you. That a camera shutter firing can be its own kind of heartbeat. Every day, across the world, we all bask in the light of dead stars. Gone, but not forgotten.
 

Second Place 2024

2020 Vision

James Dyksen, Director, Center for Academic & Career Success; and a Patient

Spring 2020 – We did not know

Inhale and hold, weigh the tightness. Exhale. I’m ok. Am I ok? Breathe. Wait. Breathe. A chill settles, cold uncertainty. No way to know. But I am still breathing.

Twelfth of March, 2020, my birthday at 51 years. Earlier that day we received notice from the university where I work that we were going remote, work from home, the start of lockdown, isolation, reduction of exposure. My son’s school did the same. The same across the city, state, country.

RG and I met for drinks to celebrate my birthday and the just passed birthday of her husband, my best friend, who had died just the previous November. We’d made a plan to get together days before, only passingly thinking of risk. We sat down at a little table across from all the people crowded at the bar, looked at each other, and said, “Think this is a good idea?” Well, we’re here, we said, and we ordered drinks and talked about what was happening. A few weeks we’d been told, a few weeks to reduce transmission, to… we didn’t know. March 2020. We did not know.

After a couple of drinks, I hugged RG and said goodbye, off to catch my train, the last I would take for almost a year. We shrugged and hugged, said, see you when I see you, take care, and I headed home to my family.

I set up my desk in the basement, laptop and monitor, paper lugged from the office. Set up a workspace, used Zoom – Can you hear me? The connection is weak. Can you share screen? I’m sorry, go ahead. I chose a photo for a background to hide the basement walls and washer and dryer behind me. Couldn’t learn to speak at a normal volume - days alone in the basement, working, emailing, connecting remotely, yelling at a screen. Up the stairs, make a cup of tea, walk the dog while wearing a cloth mask, stand on the back porch, breathe. Pace, sit, stand on the back porch, and watch the quiet neighborhood.

By the end of March, I was sick, undeniably so. Never tested positive, but had to be. That tightness in the chest, different than any I’d experienced before. Or maybe I imagined that. The virus at work, doing what it does, my body defending, and terror radiating in rings, waves, storms. Terror. Conversations with my wife about who could care for our child if both of us got sick and died – totally reasonable, necessary conversations. Freezer cars of bodies outside hospitals in New York. Hospitals overrun here in Philly. And I thought, “Am I ready?”

Summer 2020 – This is my house

My mother sat in a good, sturdy armchair. Solid, no slide, ample support at seat and back. She sat there every day, most of her waking hours. She sat there in that chair and cried the day my son and I went to visit and entered with masks on our faces.

Why are you wearing a mask? I’m not sick. You don’t need that. This is my house. Wash your hands when you come in, but you don’t need to wear a mask in my house. No. I’m going to see you, see my grandson like this? Talk to you like this? In my house? I’m not sick. This is my house. And so on.

We had not seen her for six months or so. We live a four-hour drive away. We thought we could safely make the trip, one safe rest stop on the way. We planned a short visit, a walk outside. She did not understand. She knew about the pandemic, or learned about it freshly day by day, marveling, “all over the world, people are getting sick?” My mom was in the thick of Alzheimer’s dementia, lost in woods, walking well-trodden paths that became no more familiar, offered no way out. The ratio of peace, pleasure, joy to fear, anxiety, agitation was not good. The fear and worry new every day.

She knew us, always, but wanted to see our faces. She could not understand that our concern was about protecting her. She sat in her chair and cried and grew more and more upset that her grandson should see her that way. I did not know what to do. I knew it was a risk to be in the same space unmasked… to her and to us. I imagined her hospitalization, isolated, struggling to breathe, imagined her dying afraid and alone. Not like it didn’t happen to a lot of people.

We eventually took off our masks and sat across the room and opened windows and doors. We asked her to walk with us, and with a deep, satisfied sigh, she stood and put on sunglasses and a hat, gripped the outdoor walker, and we made our way out the door, down the ramp, and into the sunlight.

She stood at the screen and waved when we left. Tears rolling right into her smile. Joy in our visit, pain in our departure, both already sliding away, sand at the shore.

She sat in her chair and shook her head. This is my house. No one is sick here. No.

Summer 2020 – Say their names

We wore our masks the whole time, even outdoors, because we were in a crowd of people. Hot, sweat in my beard, uncomfortable, but we could breathe, and we’d grown accustomed.

We gathered at the park and listened to the march leaders. I was happy and proud to be there with my son, to show him in this relatively safe way that we could be part of a community that cares enough to gather, to be a walking statement, bodies and voices in the street, trying to honor and to influence.

But we were at no real risk, and were no real threat. Lower Merion, mainline, cops at a respectful distance, escorting and cooperating, not obstructing at all. This little march through Adrmore, PA, not like the marches downtown in Philly, no tear gas, no confrontation. An easy way to feel better, to seem to be doing something? Maybe. But important to show up nonetheless, and important for my son to be part of it.

We walked with all kinds of folks from our town and community, and we raised our voices and said the names George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain... We said together, Black Lives Matter. How insane that such a phrase should need to be spoken, that anyone could stand on any other side and say, “well, but what about…” But I know our history, the depths of insanity in which we live and accept as expected.

At the Town Hall, in front of the police station, we knelt. We knelt in the street for almost nine minutes – the time it took for George Floyd to die under a police officer’s knee. We felt, as we could, how long that is. We knelt, and as knees pressed into the road, I tried not to move, to shift, to seek comfort, and imagined a cheek pressed against the hot road, a knee on a neck, that indifferent human force, the disregard and contempt. Imagined the voices, the people watching, yelling, pleading, recording. Imagined the time, all that time, and the silence that followed George Floyd’s last breath.

We bowed our heads, we knelt in the street, and ached and prayed, self-conscious and sore. After a time, we stood and looked around at our neighbors sweating behind masks, looked at our feet, acknowledging our small act of grief and outrage and empathy. I put my hand on my son’s shoulder. He let me, and we silently walked home.

I remember the day less with hope (although there was movement across the country in the summer of 2020 that inspired some) than with a renewed sense of the enormity of the struggle, again, still, and the knowledge that I have not done enough, not risked enough. No excuses. I share responsibility and cannot indulge in despair. I’m still breathing, it’s not too late.

Summer 2022 – “When this old world is blown asunder…”

We had a plan. I don’t recall the details of the story we told to get her to put on shoes and come outside and get in the car. A doctor’s visit, need for rehab, something important, had to do it, can’t reschedule… And we wondered, and almost had to face – what if we can’t get her in the car? But we did.

There are parts of the day I do not remember. I remember sitting with her in the back seat; my aunt, her sister, drove. I remember her saying she would never be back, pleading with us not to take her from her home. I remember our reassurances, our repetition, our necessary lies.

We took her to her room at T House. It was miraculous that she should have it, after so many months of looking and so many worse places considered – a good room, a room to herself, with a bathroom and a window, a room where she’d be well cared for. I remember that before the day was out, she referred to the room as her house and never again mentioned the one we had taken her from.

So it was OK? Good? Right? It was. It was the right thing to do, long overdue probably, best for her and all of us. But still.

It didn’t take long. She had stopped eating. By the fall, October, my brother called and suggested I should come up. I am so grateful for those days, and for the smiles with which she greeted me – my buddy! You came! I love you! As all fell away, somehow that recognition and love remained.

I was sleeping when my mother’s last breath passed from her exhausted, emaciated body. My brother was there. He couldn’t sleep and knew and drove through the dead of the night to her room, and he sat with her. He was there when her rattling breathing quieted and then ceased, and the room filled with implacable silence.

Spring 2024 - Shaking

The first time, the shaking began in the shower. I knew I had a slight fever, which we were watching closely. I remember my wife warned me not to make the water too hot. That was my intention as I got in, but chills began, and I cranked the heat a bit, which felt better and helped, until it did not, and I was standing in steaming water, shivering and shaking. My only thought was to get out and get into something warm. I hustled to the closet and put on every fleeced, blanketed, flannel thing I could grab – at least three layers. I went downstairs, shaking violently, and my wife said oh no. The shaking intensified, and she held me down and tried to strip off layers I thought I needed.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the shaking and teeth chattering had eased, and I’d shed layers, and I could talk with them. The fever seemed to have broken; my temperature was normal, and my vitals were fine. We let them leave, and I was fine for another 16 hours or so.

About 4am the next morning, in bed, under layers of blankets, the shaking began again. I could not be still, could not easily talk, but this time we agreed quickly to call the ambulance again and not let them leave – I was going to the ER. My wife knelt on my chest, held me down, and tried to still the shaking. The chill and shaking my most durable memory at the start of a long and difficult time.

A kidney stone, small, 3 mm, should have been passable, but, for me, was not. It became impacted and caused an infection, which led to sepsis and septic shock. They told me in the ER how sick I was and that I was headed straight to surgery.

My wife was there when I awoke in ICU, there when the seemingly shaken anesthesiologist came in to check on me and let us know how close I’d come, how low my BP had dropped. It took me a while to realize, as I questioned and researched in the days that followed, how serious it all was. I don’t know if it is accurate to say I almost died, but I certainly could have. I could have.

There is a lot I don’t remember, or not clearly. But I remember my wife’s kiss, the hospital rooms, the difficulty moving in bed, the IVs, the troubled dreams, the voices in hallways and at bedside. I remember, finally home, bundled up in May, walking with my wife around the block, grateful for her, for my life, for the sun and clouds, and the chance to see my child walk at high school graduation and to drop him off at college. Grateful, blessed, and knowing, knowing that I might not have woken in ICU, knowing that when death comes for me, it might be in unconsciousness or confusion, and likely will be.

Fall and Winter 2024 – Ready or not

We dropped our son off at college in August. He is our only child. I anticipated, of course, but was ultimately unprepared for how powerfully his absence, his transition into more independent adulthood, would mark a change in my life. We are so happy for him and so excited for all that will come for him – opportunities, challenges, and adventures – and for us. But his heading off to school seemed clearly to mark for me parts of our lives that have passed and cannot be again. And, of course, I also see the world he is inheriting and the grave danger our country faces.

And so, given the gift of more life, I have changed my diet, and given up alcohol almost completely, and, well, started to work out more. I will do what I can. I see my aged, dying parents in my reflection; it is undeniable. I don’t know how much time I have – well, who does? But my body will surely fail someday, and I did not know that before as I do now.

Echo of the isolation years, I have often found myself in the basement again, listening to records, playing guitar, and sorting photos. I am writing words that maybe no one will see, but which are worth the effort, to make sense or to make a record. I can do my work - and seek work, effort, and collaboration that helps. I can do more, and greet the day with curiosity, hope and love.

I find my breath, sit on the back porch, walk the dog, and watch the quiet day. The quiet day stares back. Ready to die, ready to live.

Third Place 2024

The Sacred Measure of Seven: An Aging Meditation

Pamela Talero Cabrejo, Occupational Therapist, Jefferson College of Rehabilitation Sciences

One

Whole and wholesome,

a symbol of unity—

a God, a Universe.

Expelled from the womb,

you cry out.

In the blink of a century,

in a split-second breath,

you arrive.

Neither male nor female,

just One,

pure, unbroken world.

Two

Duality sets in.

Night and day,

joy and pain.

In the harmony of Two,

you balance, you fall.

Redemption comes in pairs:

a partner, a mirror, a half.

Three

Birth, life, death.

Past, present, future.

Seed, tree, forest.

Beginning, middle, end.

The three sides of triangles,

bearing the graces, the furies,

the divine.

Three—creative power—

Growth, healing, and hope.

Four

In chaos, the Universe finds its order:

Four elements,

four seasons,

four cardinal directions.

Four dances between chaos and form,

as you have brought both to my world.

A chaotic beauty,

a wonder spun in balance.

We split, and we meet again at the center,

Where all paths cross.

Five

Grace emerges in Five.

The pentagon stretches its arms wide,

unrestricted.

You cross your arms,

And wear capes of stars with five arms reaching wide to every corner,

expanding ever greater.

Oh! and the imagination that goes beyond the five hearts of earthworms.

It simply cannot be counted in fingers or toes,

but in powered prime numbers and bursts of energy,

laughter,

a good cry when life seems to be overwhelming.

Six

Six hums with harmony,

the perfect number to some,

a puzzle to others.

Six sides to a cube,

dots in a Braille cell,

the highest domino.

Six degrees connect us all.

You balance the world’s weight

with your growing ideals.

Six cradles middle childhood,

a melody of self-discovery,

an architecture of thought.

Seven

Seven roars with sacred power.

Athena guards the gate,

Minerva lights the path.

Seven higher worlds,

seven underworlds,

where newborn Buddha takes

seven steps forward.

Completion echoes

in every cell,

a round of applause everywhere.

Seven heavenly cows moo,

and seven paths open wide.

What is aging but

a sacred dance of sevens?

Over oceans, forests, and deserts,

you soar.

You learn, you grow, you return.

What is aging but a meditation on time?

a fraction,

a second.

A beat,

a thump.

Metronome sounds in the background:

You come,

you go.

Third Place 2024

Prism

Yazan Bader, Student, Sidney Kimmel Medical School

An Arab man walks into a therapist’s office in London. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but this is precisely where I found myself just months removed from my move to the city. Only weeks into December, the echoes of autumn are still reverberating throughout the air before winter works up the nerve to announce its presence. Now in my second gap year, I have spent the time since graduation painstakingly attempting to persuade over 40 medical schools that they lacked a student of my exact qualifications. For my efforts, I have been rewarded with over 40 rejections, each offering their own unique approach to damaging my ego. Some offered condolences, wishing me luck in my future endeavors so long as it wasn’t at their institution.

Some made it quick and painless, snuffing out the embers of false hope before they had the chance to ignite. The one consistency among the kaleidoscope of rejections was that the vision of myself as a physician became increasingly difficult to discern. In many ways, applying to medical school resembles the worst version of speed dating. You put your best foot forward to convince several wholly distinct people that you are uniquely tailored to them in the hopes that you can walk away with a chance to meet again. The main difference is when you aren’t a medical school’s ‘type’, it sets you back a year and thousands of dollars; beyond that, the two are not so different. Despite this, I opted to go through the application process once more; by this time, I had mustered enough nerve to craft over 40 new

applications. Having done my part, I could only wait in agony for that first response. Each week void of good news brought with it a pervasive deja vu. Once again, doubt was clinging to me like the formaldehyde stench on my more successful peers who would be learning

anatomy without me. At this point, an insidious uncertainty was clouding my outlook, and I was losing faith in the person I thought I was. Recognizing that something needed to be done, I registered for a session of psychodynamic counseling. More specifically, I rescheduled my counseling, given that I flaked on my original appointment. This time, despite making it to the entrance, I’m finding myself shuddering with trepidation over what might unfold, my hand hovering over the door handle with the caution of a novice surgeon. Nevertheless, I will myself to step through the door as though light passing through a prism, allowing myself to disperse into all my past iterations.

–

At some point, I was orphaned by my mother tongue. Eventually, the 28 letters which I thought innate became foreign to my ears and unfamiliar on my lips. The language that provided ambience in the womb, a preview of who I was to be, suddenly required all the concentration in the world to decipher; a moment of distraction, and the meaning was lost entirely. Words dropped out of my vocabulary without warning, without spectacle. Like powdered snow which falls in silence overnight, it is only in the morning’s aftermath when you realize you’ve been walled in, unable to do so much as leave your driveway.

How much of our identity are we meant to sacrifice for the sake of assimilation? I imagine my parents grappled with this dilemma often as they bid farewell to their lives in Jordan in hopes of carving out opportunities for me and my younger sister. Our suburban sanctuary had all the familiar fixtures that they advertise to those willing to take the plunge, the smiling neighbors, the sprawling green lawn, you name it. Most importantly, they were able to raise children who should have been indistinguishable from their peers. I occasionally imagine the version of myself that was left behind the day my parents decided to leave Amman. For the sake of belonging, I abandoned the version of myself that might have spoken Arabic, that would have made time to see his grandparents every week, that would have married someone from his hometown and raised children who did not have to disguise themselves for the approval of others.

In Jordan, I have no name. I am ‘ibn Feras’, Feras’ son. I am the first son and the first grandchild. I am a sponge being asked to absorb the ocean. From the moment I am born, I am asked to fill the shoes of the ones who came before me. Various degrees adorn the walls of my home, testaments to the years of laborious training amidst all manner of adversity. In childhood, I regarded the transition to manhood as something to be feared. I was expecting to be enveloped in a cocoon on the eve of my 18th birthday and emerge the following morning having metamorphosed into someone asked to bear the burden of responsibility. My father, however, taught me that deciding when to become an adult is a luxury only a select few possess.

My father became a man at 15. On August 2, 1990, my father awoke to Iraqi tanks rumbling down the streets of Kuwait. My father did not receive a memo the day before to commemorate the abrupt end of his youth. On that day, he was forced to abandon his blissful naivete in the name of survival. Unable to rely on my grandfather who had been taken prisoner, my father led his mother and five younger siblings to Jordan. He does not speak of it often, nor would I be so cruel as to ask that of him. Nevertheless, I can tell the crimson-stained streets and blood-curdling screams were permanently seared into his memories. I used to wonder if it made him seethe to watch me cry over every inconvenience. A wax replica, I was his spitting image on the surface, but any heat would melt away the facade revealing the hollow imitation I believed myself to be. In the eyes of a man who has endured so much, why do I deserve to cry?

–

I have been here before.

Now sitting in the therapist’s office just small enough to straddle the line between cozy and claustrophobic, I am overcome with a hauntingly familiar feeling of dread. Waves of shame wash over me, wiping away any trace of growth the past six years had etched into my mind’s shore. In the reflection of the therapist’s eyes, I see an 18-year-old boy masquerading as a man. His eyes are underscored by dark circles from days spent in slumber and nights endured awake. He’s shed over 10 pounds from an already thin frame, the result of months of compulsive exercise to silence an internal chorus of self-criticism. One glance tells me that he’s there as a last resort; a hail mary to overcome the obstacles he hasn’t been able to surmount on his own.

The more time passes, the more critical I am of my past self. It feels as though the only thing spurring me onward is a desire to eclipse my previous self with someone more capable. However, I encounter a conundrum time and time again; even the improved version of myself is fated to fall short of the expectations set by me of tomorrow. The older I get, the more foolish, the more disappointing I’ve decided I was previously. I think of the 12-year-old boy sobbing in a school hallway in a country he doesn’t know, because he was being taunted in a language he’s supposed to understand. I pity him and the way he wears his vulnerability like a beacon for all to see. I think of the 18-year-old who sold his PlayStation to visit his high school sweetheart, only to break up days after returning to college. I wonder if the lock with their initials has managed to stay clasped to the bridge, surviving six frigid Montreal winters as an ode to juvenile infatuation and youthful delusion. I think of the 24-year-old who is fighting tooth and nail to get into medical school, only to be outclassed and outmatched by his peers. I wish I could tell him that it gets easier, and that things will click, but I have yet to reach that version of myself.

–

In a few months, I’m going to be 25 years old. At this age, I’m still young enough to obsess over the future, but just old enough to consider the impact I want to leave behind. Funnily enough, my father was 25 the year I was born. Although I have no children of my own, I can’t help but think that the day may be approaching sooner than I’m ready to admit. What sort of example will I be able to set for them? What will I say to my son when he comes home in tears and tells me he’s being picked on at school? Do I scold him and remind him that vulnerability is just ammunition for those with ill intentions, or do I coddle him, insisting that everything will be alright in due time? In doing the former, am I raising someone strong, or someone who won’t know how to process frustration but through rage misdirected upon others? In doing the latter, am I showing him the compassion all children deserve from their parents, or am I deceiving him, manufacturing a mirage wherein he never has to worry about others taking advantage of him?

When I was younger, it felt like my parents had all the answers, as though having me had imparted them with all the knowledge necessary to raise a functioning member of society. As time passes, I’ve come to realize they were probably figuring things out on the fly, feigning conviction to provide me security in times of uncertainty. In this liminal space between dependent child and independent adult, I am trying to apply this approach to myself. I deserve to use my past shortcomings as evidence of the progress I’ve made, a reminder that it’s possible to chase tomorrow without having disdain for today.

–

I have been here before.

Having sat in the therapist’s office just long enough for the silence to grow uncomfortable, my reasons for being there dissipate without warning. I meet the therapist’s kind eyes once

more and through them I can see the various shades of blue tinting my life. I see the navy colors of the only school to extend me an interview invitation, offering a sole shot at redemption after months of failure. I see the sunlight glittering across the teal Arabian Gulf, an ironic reminder that my ambitions are only taking me further away from the only source of consistency in a life defined by transience. It becomes suffocatingly obvious that the therapist is waiting for me to speak. I want to allow everything that torments me to cascade like a waterfall onto the ornate carpeting at my feet. I’m not sure I’m supposed to be here, but despite it all, I compose myself and begin to speak.