Amanda

I’ve never really known anyone who had died before – except for a little girl named Amanda, the daughter of a family who went to our local mosque. Looking back I only remember vague encounters with her, but then again she was five years younger than I, and having been diagnosed with leukemia at the age of six, had become quite shy and reclusive. What I remember most was one Eid long ago, when we had dinner with her family and her mother asked me to help cut up her food. She was about seven at the time, wearing a pink dress and a matching hat that helped to hide the fact that she had lost most of her soft blond hair. Stalling for conversation I had asked her random questions to bide the time, like ‘what is your favorite color’ or ‘how is school going’ - nonchalant phrases to ease the awkwardness. I remember my last question so clearly, and the bright, hopeful look on her face as she answered. Come to think of it, it was a question I would have asked anyone, not realizing the meaning it might have held especially for her. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I had asked, hoping to instill some conversation in her. I recall her little hands clutching at the pink doll she always carried around, and her soft, barely audible voice whispering: “A mommy.”

Amanda died two years later, at the age of nine. I could not bring myself to attend her funeral. Death was still too new to me. Instead, I sat at home, mourning for so young a child, wondering about God and hope and life and everything. How could she have died? Why would God have let her? I suppose I was too young to answer those questions at the time. Maybe I still am. 

I don’t believe that anyone can answer the question: ‘Why?’ There really isn’t an answer, or at least not one that can appease everyone. We hear about ‘God’s will’ and fate and destiny but when it comes to someone you know, words of comfort are, in essence, just words. Faith on the other hand is inner and personal, something all our own. 

In time, I came to terms with the inevitability of death. Yes, Amanda died. But so would everyone, eventually. The beauty of life is that it is never ending - people die, people live. And we remember. 

I will always remember Amanda as she once was, before leukemia, before chemotherapy, before everything – just the jovial, bouncy, blond-haired Amanda. I know that her parents and brother will see her again, that I will see her again too. And maybe, just maybe, she will finally get what she wanted up there in heaven, beautiful little Amanda, with all the pink-colored dolls she could ask for.