Grief That Connects Us Across Continents and Calendars

Grief That Connects Us Across Continents and Calendars Today marks one year since Sana left us—according to the Islamic calendar, which follows the rhythm of the moon and shifts ten days earlier each year. But truthfully, every day feels like an anniversary. There is no single moment that defines her absence. It’s constant, stretching across time, threading itself into the silence, the memories, the heartbeat of each day. My family in Australia is commemorating this day in a way Sana would have loved—with sweets and prayers in her honor. It comforts me to know that across the world, people are remembering her with love and warmth. Yesterday, dear friends from Kuala Lumpur came to visit us. They brought along their cousins from Chicago. As we sat down together, the layers of grief unfolded gently. One of them lost their 20-year-old son three years ago. He didn’t wake up one morning. Just like that—no warning, no time to prepare. And we found ourselves talking about what grief looks like in different forms. Is it harder to watch someone you love slip away slowly, like we did with Sana? Or is it more devastating when the loss is sudden, without goodbye? There was no clear answer. Because pain doesn’t follow a hierarchy. Loss is loss. And in that moment, we understood each other without needing to explain. She had tears in her eyes as she looked at pictures of Sana—her smile, her joy, her presence. We spoke about how both of us have found ourselves uninterested in so many of the things that once mattered. How we’ve learned to live moment by moment, not planning too far ahead, not expecting too much. Simply breathing through each day. But something beautiful happened too—we laughed. Not because our pain has disappeared, but because grief had knit us together. In shared sorrow, we found connection. And in that connection, we found a bit of light. There is a strange peace that comes when your pain is mirrored by someone else’s. You don’t feel as alone in your silence. And somehow, in that shared space, love rises again. Sana’s love. Her memory. Her essence—alive in every story, in every shared tear, in every sweet prayer sent up in her name.