2 years, 6 months, and 1 week

You dared to love me for me even though my bags were heavy
You challenged me to be better when I thought I was doing my best
You loved my children through actions that their fathers were too coward to take
You bridged the gap between a mother and her daughter after years of lies and dysfunction
You exemplified how a Muslim should live and made us better Muslims in the process
You gave me the tools to forge on when grief came and sat on my chest
You picked up the slack when I was inadequate and never expected a thank you
You held my hand no matter the weather, time, or place
You called the shots that needed called but counted my opinion
You led me from a place of fear to a place of peace and joy
You did so much more than I hoped you would
in every light and scope

"I was talkin to Allah, and I'm alright wit it!"

My father was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 30 and meant my mother in rehab at that time. He was learning to walk with arm braces and she was recovering from back surgery. By the time I was born my father was in a wheel chair. If you talked to my father but had never seen him in person you would never imagine him disabled. He would tell you that he jumped on the bus in the morning and played a few games of chess with the old heads downtown in market square, then went over to the mall to get some thin sliced corned beef,and stopping to visit an old friend in the hospital on his way home. My father once told me that he forgets he can't walk and in his dreams he isn't disabled. My father always talked about Islam and Allah when I was growing up but he and my mother had split long before that and I was too busy with boyfriends,cheer leading,and all things kufar to want to listen. When I took my shahadah my father cried with thankfulness to Allah every time he saw me covered for months. Attending our masjid was just too difficult because of the logistics of the stairs. His electric chair too heavy for brothers to lift, his muscles too deteriorated to sit in the masjid after being carried in. He came from the old school Nation of Islam and his understanding had grown so much since I became muslim. He started attending the ICP where he could roll right in on the ramp and faithfully attended Jumah every Friday for the past two years. I watched him ever so slowly lose more and more function over the past five years as his disability finally started to "show."  No longer able to rip and run like he used to. He loved a good steak at a good restaurant and I couldn't figure out why he kept turning me down on my invite to go out to dinner. It was one of our favorite things to do! It took so long for him to admit that he no longer had the arm strength to feed himself.  He still had good days where he did and went, but the days he laid in bed and watched sports became more and more common. Two weeks ago his wife had called to say that he was in the hospital for retaining too much water but would be going back home in a couple of days. Those days came and went and his kidneys shut down,his liver stopped functioning,and brain infection was found. At first he was fighting and doctors were trying to put everything in place for him to do  dialysis at home 3 days a week,but if you knew my dad you knew that life in a hospital half the week,with the rest of the week being too tired to do anything was'nt gonna work for my father. If he cant go and do...he'd rather just be done with this life. Yesterday he finally said "I'm tired of fighting". They found another infection and the drugs they need to give to fight the infection are very hard on the kidney's. The doctors say he's in a no win situation but as my father always says" I was talkin to Allah, and I'm all right wit it!"......I'm alright with it too dad, but man am I gonna miss you.

Too Black for Whites & Too White for Blacks.

Too black for the whites, too white for the blacks...or just not black enough. Spining in a vortex of stereo typical ideas about race in America. I came across a documentary on you tube titled "I'm Biracial,not Black Damn it!" It featured a miriade of half black and half white people and there experience growing up this way. Their comments and experiences validated my own feelings and journey of growing up mixed in America. My mother said she would often get stopped by a white woman while pushing my stroller,who would say "oh my what a beautiful sun tan your baby has!" My mother would respond in her native New Jersey style blunt verbratto " She's black you idiot!" To complicate matters my mother came from very proud ITALIAN family,and if you know Italians you know that they don't consider themselves white. In high school I sat in the black section of the cafeteria but often visited the white one,and even though I was gently teased about not being black,speaking too white,or having a flat white girl butt, I felt more accepted than I did amongst whites. I think that because of the persecution blacks have received as a whole they are inherently more accepting of people who are shunned because of race. I was biracial before it was "in" and less common so I never could find the right shade of foundation. Nude pantyhose made my legs look like prosthetics and the "Black Essence" hose didn't look right either. Gel and mousse formed my hair into a curly freeze dried wanna be Afro and hair grease was just a different unimaginable disaster. It wasn't until around age 12 that I figured out that my mom had no idea what she was doing with hair like mine and I took matters into my own hands. Buying white hair products and black hair products and mixing them together until I found something that made my hair look half decent. 20 years later I'm in my mothers shoes with 5 daughters who's hair is not white,not black,and not even biracial like mine,but relegated to the undefined gray term of "ethnic hair" that I have no idea what to do with. I think my kids are considered what the young bucks call "MGM" (multi-generational mulatto).History repeating itself like a scratched Anita Baker record. My pro black,very African American father encouraged me to use whatever racial status would get me the furtherest for the particular situation. Being black got me more financial aid in college, being white got me a better APR on a car loan when I graduated, and checking both boxes got people confused. I further complicated matters in 2006 when I became Muslim and started wearing a hijab. Even Arabs think I'm Arab. Mexicans often start speaking to me in Spanish assuming I'm Hispanic and everyone seems completely confused when a Muslim who looks Arab but checks the African AMERICAN box sits down and sounds like a white girl who did a 10 year bid in Catholic school. I'm not Black,White,Arab,Mexican,or anything else you assume me to be, but I certainly can be!