Viladah
(Arabic for birth)
So I had a near death experience. What follows is not the usual how you should make the most of every moment in life because it may be your last (I have never known how else to live even prior to this experience), or life is precious (learnt that when I was six and saw a flock of sparrows carry the limp sparrow which had fallen from a tree), or there is a God after all (I could comfortably communicate with a Higher Being before I was taught how to pray in any language), or I had an epiphany (I am introspective enough to have one a day). Below is merely an account of my thoughts, as much as I can accurately recall them, before what I thought were my last seconds on this Earth.
First there was “slight” turbulence. Yet neither the pilots nor any of the flight attendants made any announcements so I assumed all was well. Five minutes later it was a tad shakier than I had ever experienced on any flight. At that instant I knew this was not normal. We were an hour and a half into the fourteen hour journey; the dinner was on its way to be served. The moment I saw the flight attendant leave the food cart unattended and seat herself with a seat belt around her, I knew this was a not an ordinary commotion. The next big bump made the juice in my glass spill out of my food tray and all over me and the aisle. Then someone’s food tray fell. Then there were screams after a baby fell out of her mother’s lap onto the floor. This was not turbulence, we were going down. It was hard to think over the shakiness, the brain was rattled because it could not, one, decipher the facts fast enough and two, process that information it was taking in. The overhead compartments shook open and some people’s luggage fell down as people tried to duck their heads.
In the middle aisle of four seats, mama was seated between my father and I. Another man was seated to my father’s left. Then there was an aisle for three people to the left of that man and an aisle of three to my right. I held mama’s hand and it was clammy but steady. Ever since I was very young and first registered the concept of death I believed that as long as I died at the same time as mama I would not be scared of dying or a life thereafter without her. The plane was pretty much out of control and here I was holding mama’s hand and my father’s hand held both of ours and I was scared. I asked my father, “What is happening?” He didn’t answer. His somber eyes replied this could possibly be it. The minutes that followed were more like hours of confusion, fear, and chaos. Two thoughts crossed my mind simultaneously: we were going to die and I was not ready to die.
Later I would learn what were the thoughts going through my mother’s and father’s heads and try to decode and accept my own, but at that moment I was busy being myself: observing what the hell was going on around and next to me. The fairly attractive Middle Eastern woman with blond highlights through her dark hair, seated a row ahead of me to my right was frantically putting on her make-up! Make-up! We were about to possibly crash and she was deciding between the Dior or Lancome lip gloss! She had her mirror out and was fixing her hair, then looking for her mascara and getting upset for not finding which ever product she needed. I could not help but envy—how calm! To be simply worried about how you are going to look in your dead body in a few minutes. I thought maybe I had lost my mind, hallucinating the entire experience. But no, one look at my father’s closed eyes and I knew this was real. This was happening. This was bad.
The man seated next to the make-up girl was yelling at the flight attendant that he wanted his last drink. That he had a right to his last drink. He wanted his whiskey and wanted it now damn it! The flight attendant seated in front of them (they were in the exit aisle, to my 2 o’clock since we were one row behind them in the middle aisle) tried to explain to him that she cannot get up to serve him, that she was equally in danger. Yet he continued to curse. The woman seated near the left window, next to the whiskey drinker, decided to read aloud from the Quran. The man next to my father started speaking in tongues to his Hindu gods, and the woman to my right took out her Bible and tried her best to read but her tears kept getting in the way. My next thought was probably the most irrational: I HAVE TO PUT MY SHOES ON IN CASE WE CRASH. I smile now as I write this: the human brain’s ability to rationalize the most silly of conditioned behaviors. We are a slave to our habitual reactions. I mean, come on, what was I going to do with my shoes if we were to crash, take a stroll out of the crushed plane?! I looked at my mother and very much like a little child said, “Mama, I can’t find my other shoe!” She just pressed my hand and wiped a tear so I stopped looking. I could hear people crying throughout the plane. A woman was yelling at her husband that this is why she refused to fly and if she lived through this she was never going to step on a plane again God be her witness.
I was scared but I have never succumbed easily to hysteria. Panic, yes; hysteria, no.
And then we lost to gravity. For maybe three seconds? Felt like three hours. There was a hush throughout the plane. The pit of your stomach feels the same detachment to inertia when the roller coaster drops you.
T h r e e
S e c o n d s …
One
When I was younger I was afraid of “what might happen.” Some adults said it was because my brother, Zain, and I had to learn how to travel between countries and fly on our own at the tender ages of five and seven, respectively. I do believe this might have had something to do with it—however, generally speaking, all three of my siblings and I are highly intuitive but appear even more so because we have had to engage with our intuition from a very young age due to a variety of life’s circumstances. The adults around me didn’t know what to do with me so they just labeled me as a “hyper-anxious” child, with the exception of my mother. Yet they all readily ignored when my “out of the blue” anticipated event did happen in one form or another. The foggy chaos that would encompass any incident about which I had been worried sideswiped my accuracy. In order to help my “hyper-receptive” nature, my father told me that there was nothing to fear and there was a phrase composed from various parts of the Quran I could say to literally feel God’s massive power, that I would physically feel that I was not alone, that God too was right there next to me watching the Universe unfold as I was anticipating it. My father, a scholar of Arabic and Islam, a very secular man, said to try and imagine the power of the Laws of and for the Universe as stated in the Quran and there would be nothing to fear. I didn’t know what he meant. I was eight. I told my father that I didn’t want to know what the words meant but instead I wanted to see for myself if these “magic” words actually worked without the translation tainting my perception of the experience. He agreed. He helped me memorize the phrase. He wrote the Arabic words phonetically in English since I did not yet know Arabic. I practiced until I had the right pronunciation and knew the phrase verbatim. I would say the phrase all the time without cause. And then I stopped because I was bored of saying the phrase whenever I could remember to repeat it in my silences. A week went by, then a month, then another month, and then one calm evening when shades of dusk poured throughout, over and in, the Lahore house, I asked my younger brother Zain where our dog was. He replied outside. I knew our dog was dead. I looked at Zain and he stared back at me. And without either of us then knowing that, at that instant, we both knew one another’s thoughts, we simultaneously ran outside upon hearing a gun shot. I thought during this state of panic would be the most appropriate time to try these “magic” words from this “all Knowing Soother” up above. I said the words. First, quickly. So quickly that I couldn’t even decipher what I was saying. I kept repeating them as we ran out of the house onto the streets. Without conscious effort on my part, I began saying them slowly and slower and slower and even slower till I could hear them in my breathing. I believe that was the first time I felt the presence—literal presence—of a Grand Power encompassing my tiny existence. We would later learn that the local police had assumed our dog as stray and shot it.
Two
I thought of my last conversations before boarding the plane. A wave of panic rushed through me: how will my sister handle this news if we don’t make it—will she be fine? I thought of how she hugged me at the airport. I go over the heartfelt exchange of several text messages between my childhood best friend Erica and I before boarding. What had she said last? “Being an adult is choosing your boundaries and not feeling the need to defend your decision to cease discussing them.” I thought of the countless lengthy exchanges of emails and texts between her and I, between my other closest friends and I, those with whom I go deep-soul diving despite being scared of going that far into the unknown stratosphere of the self.
Three
There I sat and prayed: not to live but to accept bravely if this indeed was the end. I mostly prayed for the comfort of those who will have to continue without us. I was surprised to learn that I really did not regret much. And even those decisions that, up until that moment, I felt I should or could have done differently did not subtract value from my life. Saying the same Arabic phrase over and over again assured me that I need not worry about Sherry, my brothers, and those friends I considered family. Then—three distinctly separate but simultaneous thoughts, faster than I could blink went through my mind, and these three thoughts made me wish to not die, just not yet. A split-second longer on these three thoughts further illuminated that these exact three manifestations were the reason I would not die just yet. It was then that I knew we were not going to die. But I wanted to confirm this feeling was not mere hope or faith but a concrete fact. But then I thought faith doesn’t need facts. I needed a substantial FACT. And then right in the middle of my imaginary good-byes and the three thoughts and need for confirmation beyond faith another notion which I share below came to my mind. And instead of thinking about death or the three thoughts, I wondered: how to share that reflection with Sherry or Erica or Vuyo or Londiwe or Hsindy or…! What was I thinking! I couldn’t die without sharing this with them! I reached for a pen…
There was my substantial fact.
Needless to say the plane was up against gravity again otherwise you would not be reading this now.
This is not the forum to share the three thoughts. However, I do share what I wanted to write down and share with the aforementioned friends, my deep-soul diving buddies:
There is not a single query that can exist within you for which the answer too does not reside inside. You may not understand the answer but that does not change that you know the answer. Neither does it make anything necessarily easier by any means; it exists nonetheless—do with it what you may: freewill galore. The answer exists because your question gave birth to it; it is just so that sometimes it takes longer to come to terms with what you already know.
Hours after it was confirmed that there would really be no more shaky turbulence, I asked my mother, “Mama—how come that woman was not scared? You know the one putting on the make-up when everyone else was so scared?” My mother replied, “People have a different way of dealing with fear, especially death.” I gave her the look that, as my friend Erica once put it, says I-am-trying-to-come-up-with-a-better-question-because-your-answer-is-not-satisfactory. My mother then added, “She was not afraid of death because she is afraid of living.”
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What a beautiful piece of writing. I was engrossed throughout but the last sentence made me realize what is wrong with the world. Cowards walking around all their lives, bearing the weight of their own coffins on top of their legs.
Thank you for sharing this piece.
I love you… and aspire to learn the words your father taught you in Arabic. These thoughts you shared are truly amazing. I don’t have any other words to describe it. Your observations are much similar to mind in a state of chaos. You wonder how people can seriously act in a manner- for example the whiskey drinker berating the flight attendants… REALLY? Or the Woman who was putting on make up… REALLY? or, just your thought to put on your shoes… LOL. Gosh, I miss you, and feel terrible that I haven’t made a moment to speak with you. Please forgive me, and please let me know how I can reach you by telephone. I assume you are in South Africa… but I could be wrong. XOXO Nikki PS your mother was right… after she sought after a better answer- that woman putting on make up was afraid of living.
@Denice – No apologies needed, my friend. We all get caught up. Thank you for reading and relating. Not in SA yet…will keep you posted.
Part of living is dying…my yoga instructor Marco would say we die and are born every moment…if you can’t accept dying as part of living, you are not accepting of Life.
@Hafiz Shirazi – nice name…. “hafiz shirazi” is one of my favorite poets…
Oh my! That is the craziest thing I have heard!! I am so happy you guys, and the rest of the people on the plane, are safe now! In fact even crazier yet is the fact that I gave this very experience a thought…you never know when is the last goodbye. That is why I called to speak with everyone before you guys left. I am happy I was able to chat with you online from the airport in Dubai. But all the while I do remember thinking about it as if something happens on the plane.
I remember my flight last summer had some major turbulence, not as bad as this at all, but just to the level of drinks spilling and peoples faces getting really fearful and concerned. And I remember I just could not help but smile knowing THIS WAS IT. I would not want Mama to be there. I wishfully want her to be alive eternally, not just for me but for everyone in the world
I love you and so amazed you were able to recall all this, and what you wrote in that last moment–so powerful!
@Double Dorje – Thanks Z. The smile you talk about upon knowing “this is it,” as another dear friend shared with me, is similar to the Apache saying, “This is a good day to die.”
Yea–I am pretty stunned too to recall it all like I did above (some of my thoughts I wrote in the plane–not the entire piece above but my thoughts–for no other reason but because I wanted to later reflect WHAT WAS I THINKING THEN). None of it is a post-reflection.
Moreover, one reader from my List was offended by the last sentence. That my last sentence shows how judgmental mama’s statement was (can you believe someone perceiving mama—MAMA–as judgmental?!). I tried to explain to him that mama did not elaborate on what she meant THEN or even NOW when I asked her what she meant. It is something either you understood upon reading (whatever meaning it had for you) or you didn’t and even I find new meaning in it every time I consider it. I choose not to share other details about others on the plane that would in hindsight come across as being judgmental of others’ reactions. The above was just my sharing of my thoughts and observations THEN. I can’t help that is really how I think even when dying or living. That is just how my brain processes moments. I don’t strive for it.
I think you are very mindful to always give ‘good byes’ the weight they deserve. I love you for that, always. Thanks for reading and your thoughts.