The number 27

The Calendar of Grief It’s been seventeen months today. I remember how, when Sana was a baby, I used to mark every little milestone — her first smile, her first word, her first step. I would fill her calendar with moments that made me proud, joyful, and amazed by how quickly she was growing. Those were the days when time felt like a celebration. Now, I find myself counting the days of her absence instead. It’s heartbreaking how life turns things upside down. What was once a record of beginnings has now become a quiet calendar of endings — or rather, of enduring. Each passing month reminds me of how long it’s been since I last saw her, and how, even after all this time, the ache hasn’t lessened. Yesterday, Serena’s friend’s mom passed away. They waited by her bedside for her final moments, just as we did for Sana. That familiar waiting — the stillness between breaths, the helplessness of knowing what’s coming but not being able to stop it — came rushing back. It’s a feeling that never really leaves you. You just learn to carry it differently. I’ve also developed a strange relationship with numbers now. I’ve begun to dislike the number 27. It’s the day Sana left us. Ironically, it’s also Maahir’s and my birthday. How life can hold so much love and loss within the same date feels cruel at times — as if joy and grief are forever intertwined. Seventeen months. I still find myself measuring time through her — not through the ticking of clocks or the changing of seasons, but through the rhythm of memory. There are days when I can smile at those memories, and others when they feel too heavy to bear. But maybe that’s what love after loss looks like — holding both pain and gratitude in the same heart. Remembering the child whose laughter once filled every space, and whose absence now echoes in everything I do.