Learning to Heal

for Art of Narrative Science.

Her fragile fingers run through my hair as she murmurs tangerine scented prayers under her breath. Twisting and pulling, a black stream slips around her palms as she braids. Confronting tangled spiral shaped strands and coiled chunks, I am 6 when I ask her why I don’t have her soft chestnut hair. She smiles warmly, the way only grandmothers do, and says it’s because Allah thinks I am beautiful with black hair instead. She ties it with a Minnie Mouse rubber band and doesn’t answer me much since. Today, my grandmother is 64 and she is quiet. Everything I know about my grandmother is from my grandfather. He says she is smart and resilient. Kind and funny. Outgoing and sly. And that one time when she was 13, she punched him in the face because he said she looked pretty. Every now and then when I am sitting in the living room on the rough beige carpet, the kind of carpet that leaves marks on your legs, I glance around. My eyes move from the Turkish soap opera on TV, to the plate of pears on the glass table, and linger on the big maroon couch. My mother is on her phone and I know I have her slightly crooked nose. I know I have my father’s small symmetrical teeth. I know I have my grandfather’s beady eyes. My grandmother is sipping her green tea as I try to look at myself through her translucent skin but I cannot see. I read somewhere that we are not born into this world alone. But sometimes I feel alone. It wasn’t until last summer when I learned I had inherited something far greater than soft chestnut hair.

I’ve come home from college and my grandparents have been redecorating their bedroom. Moving a velvet couch from one end to the other. Picking out color samples to paint their walls. My grandfather picks out navy blue, while my grandmother picks out sage green. They tell me to make a decision for them. I pick Teal. Good compromise. My grandfather asks me to empty out my grandmother’s stacked bookshelf and rearrange it. I rummage through dusty books and CDs. I go through a dozen Bahraini recipe books, three Qurans, five dream explanation volumes, and two kitchen supply catalogs. I wipe the shelves with a yellow cloth and marvel at the person my grandmother used to be and in some way still is. At some point in her life, she had been all these people. Sometimes I wonder If I am one of the people she has been in the past. If I had inherited anything from her. In between the piles, almost hidden, I spot a worn book. It looks as if it begs not to be touched. I do it anyway. I read “Prayers for Mourning”. I am taken aback. Why would she own this? I flip through it. Quranic verses filling my eyes. Papers fall from between papers. Shock forces me to the floor as I hold in my hands four death certificates: Amna Albeshr. Ali Albeshr. Mohammed Albeshr. Mahmoud Albeshr. I am quiet. I understand my grandmother’s quietness.

I am 18 when I find out that my grandmother has lost four of her children. Newborns. One by one. Year after year. She has never spoken about it. I had to beg my grandfather for closure. The things I know about my grandmother are very little but certain. All my life, she has advised me to repress my emotions, to keep them in until they resolve themselves. Oftentimes, when I am wallowing in unwanted sadness, I think that maybe, I might have inherited my grandmother’s grief. Grieving the grief she never grieved. It’s having a go at me. Teal begins to grow over the white walls. Recent epigenetic explanations give us the possibility to wonder if trauma can be inherited. According to The New York Times, given that trauma can leave a chemical mark on genes, researchers in California have done studies attempting to observe if these marked genes can be passed down to subsequent generations. Findings state that the mark doesn’t mutate, it alters the way the gene is expressed (Carey). My grief might be my own after all.

In a way, being human means wanting more evidence to prove that trauma can be inherited. We want to feel less alone in the world. To know that our loneliness is shared. To know that it matters. The smell of the paint holds the room. My grandmother complains about it, but I don’t mind it. Studies in mice show consistent proof of trauma-transmission. Mice were trained to fear the smell of acetophenone by exposing them to small electric shocks until the scent itself became the pain. The reaction was passed down to their offspring and to their offspring’s offspring (Callaway). To be human is to not mind the paint smell your grandmother cannot stand.

I can’t remember the last time my grandmother braided my hair. I wonder about the last time my grandmother’s grandmother braided her hair. No interlacing black strands over strands. I wear it down now, she does too. No Minnie Mouse rubber band. I am stretching it with my hands and flinging it away. To be human is to finally be loud. To be loud when you want to be quiet. To be smart, resilient, kind, funny, outgoing, sly, and to punch anyone that calls you pretty. To be human is to wonder if your ancestors would enjoy listening to your spotify playlist. To wonder if they would record themselves crying with funny filters on their laptop’s photobooth. Being human is learning to heal.

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