Samaiya Mushtaq

I think that's what makes it hard is like I don't know that I overcame it and then decided. I think it was like I recognized that I would have to live with it.

Yeah, I mean, I remember feeling it right up until I said yes. And then it was like it was gone. It was almost like a weight lifted off. It was like, whew. All that fear about doing it and how am I going to do it? It's too scary to do it again. I don't want to do it again because it could go south. And then I was like, I did it. And this is my person.

And this is the person that I want every day to have with me.

It was. I mean, in the sense that so some months after we got married, COVID happened. It was just such a chaotic and uncertain time, but we had each other. And I remember we would still like go to the beach together. And we bought, Sunny, we bought some freshly caught tuna by the coast and made poke at home because things are shut down.

That's like a common theme, apparently. Yeah, we really do. So, yeah, we made it at home because things were closed. And it was such an intimate start to the marriage because everything was shut down and we really had to just hold on to each other. Yeah.

It was so simple. I mean, we talk about what it was like, the emotional aspect. We would sit outside, have chai. We would watch movies together. It was, I don't know, I don't know another word to describe it other than just like this simple tranquility.

Our daughter was born two years after we got married.

Two years after that.

He's just so present with the kids. It's his biggest source of joy. I can just see it in his face when he's with them. And they are so attached to him.

I had separated, stayed with my parents, tried to go to couples therapy, went back, separated again. And then that second time, I was like, you know, I just have to make a decision, go through that tunnel of anxiety and fear and shame and get to the other side.

Soon after our son was born, our older child, our daughter, got sick. And I just remember almost like this dance, this silent dance of like, We knew our roles intuitively and how we are as parents by then. And so Mahmoud just takes Maimouna out of the crib and gets her cleaned up in the bath. And he's just super comforting, like, it's okay, Baba. He calls her Baba. Hmm.

It's like a visual, I guess, of who we are as parents. So I'm like thinking ahead about like the next time she vomits and getting the clean sheets on and cleaning her lovey. And he's like so focused on like her, on my daughter. Like I've got the bird's eye view of everything. And then he's got the connection. Yeah.

He had briefly talked about it in terms of putting his name on the list of volunteers, but it didn't even seem like something that was tactically happening with all the uncertainty around missions getting in. This is like in March, so this is the very early missions, and we only knew two doctors who'd gone. It was kind of like...

And theoretically, they're collecting volunteers for something that may or may not happen. So in my mind, it wasn't like, no, you're not going to put your name on. In terms of the mechanics, I didn't know what that meant as far as like, is this telehealth? And then I remember the day he got the call. That there was a mission going in March. They need a wound care doctor. Wow.

And my stomach kind of fell. But also in me, there wasn't like this immediate absolutely not. I totally empathized with and also felt like this is a call to go. And I could see the merits of going, like in terms of the moral imperative to go. But then there's also the aspect of like, I know the person that I am married to and that I love.

And I know their sense of duty and conscientiousness and also their heart. Yeah. Loving this person means loving these aspects about them and supporting their love for others. But then there's also, we have young kids. What is this going to mean not just for the days he's gone, but for the possibility that he might not come back?

In some ways, I don't even think it needed explaining because, I mean, I was seeing the same things he's seeing. It's like indiscriminate mass violence on social media. You can't ignore that. Mahmoud certainly is somebody, again, with that sense of presence, like he's reacting to what he's seeing. And me too, I mean, I'm intensely empathetic.

It wasn't unilateral like that.

We decided together he will go. So I remember one argument that we had around it where I was just like, this just feels really selfish. Like, I understand your altruism, but we are sacrificed for it. And there was like this anger in that moment. But I understand too that that was also selfishness for me because it's like I want to keep this person for ourselves.

But this person has gifts and tools and those need to be in service of more vulnerable people who need it right now in the immediate. Yeah. And my part is facilitating that by being the one who stays and by holding down the fort here so that he can go. And so it was very much a mutual decision. And, I mean, it was tough. You know, I was crying. And so there was that anxiety, certainly. Yeah.

But there was also kind of this acceptance. And I think this part really just came from faith. I really had to come to terms for me in my faith tradition that your time to go is your time to go wherever it is or however it is. But your time is your time.

I don't know if this answers your question, but there's this poem about Leila and Majnun. I don't know if you've heard it before, but it's like this classic love story. And there's this poem about them. I pass by these walls, the walls of Leila. I'm going to tear up. It's such a beautiful poem. But I pass by these walls, the walls of Leila, and I kiss this wall and that wall. Sorry.

It's not love of the walls that has taken my heart, but the person who dwells within them. So I think for me, it was loving the thing that Mahmoud loves.

I think loving humanity, loving service. These circumstances are so dire that this is just what's needed from us in this moment is to think outside of ourselves and our own nuclear families and to serve community and to serve humanity. And I think Mahmoud, his ability to be of service in that way, it permeates. And so it kind of enabled that too in me.

Yeah, that was a hard day. That was a really hard day. There's a moment I remember really distinctly. I was taking pictures of him with the kids, and he took Maimuna out on the water table in the side yard, and I was taking pictures of them through the window. And I'm terrible at taking photos. He's the one who remembers. Yeah. His presence, you know, he's like, I got to capture this moment.

So he's the one that takes the pictures and I always forget. And he was like, are you taking pictures of me because you think I won't come back? And I said, yeah. Yeah, that's exactly why I'm doing that. We took him to the airport and I remember, you know, he had his bag stacked up and I was like, smile. I just wanted the last picture I took of him to be smiling.

I didn't know what to expect, and it was really spotty. There was very little synchronous communication. So there was WhatsApp, texts, and there was voice notes. And he would send daily updates of the things he saw.

His reaction to the things he saw...

Well, he will say that it helps that I'm a psychiatrist because I would ask him, you know, sometimes he will just kind of note the observations, but I would be the one asking him the reaction to those or getting into digging deeper into what it was like for him. And so that would help him process. And yeah, he was writing almost like a kind of a daily journal basically in these WhatsApps to me.

Thank you, Anna. I'm excited to be here.

Well, our son was only like four, five months at the time. Wow, so young. They were very little, yeah. And that was really part of my fear was that if he didn't come back, they wouldn't even remember him. And what a sad legacy that would be. It would be a legacy of absence and just my retelling. And my daughter, I mean, she's super attached to him and she's precociously verbal sometimes.

We had kind of prepared her. Bob was going on a long trip. And we had the number of bedtimes. So every bedtime I would shave off. Okay, now today is 13 bedtimes. Today is 12 bedtimes, 11 more bedtimes. And that was sort of how we did it. But she really missed him.

There was just so much uncertainty. The mind will try to rationalize. The mind will try to say, oh, well, they have their coordinates. They'll be safe. They're American. They'll be safe. They're not Palestinian. They're not the targets. The mind will try to rationalize. But none of that is truth. The truth is you don't know. You cannot predict. You have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

I think at that time, it was definitely made harder that I just didn't know anyone who'd gone through that. And it just seemed like such a U-turn and failure. And I don't mess things up so colossally. So to be able to acknowledge that, not just to myself, but then to have this be announced to anybody I've ever met and have them know, it just felt so embarrassing and shameful.

No. I knew he would go back. How did you know? Well, there were two missions that he had put his name on. And he was like, well, the reason is because if the first mission doesn't work out, it falls through. And then the second one gets full, then I'm just not going to be able to go at all. And so he put his name on both thinking that like the second one was plan B. But I'm like, I know you.

You're committed. I was like, I'm not going to be the person that tells you you can't go. I'm not going to stop you. I was like, I think that you're the kind of person who honors your commitments. And he sort of saw that as me supporting him again.

Before he left, there was sort of rumblings of a ground invasion in Rafah. And then a week into his mission, they invaded Rafah. And then once they invaded Rafah, there was no exit. There's no way out of Gaza without Rafah.

You know, his observations were really poignant.

The day Mahmoud told me we're not leaving on the date that we are supposed to leave, that there's no plan right now for how we are going to leave or when, that was when I was like, oh, God. Like, all the anxieties I'd had the first mission, it was like, okay, now, now we're actually at the point where he really might not come back.

I will never regret him going.

I remember asking him, you know, what's the first thing you want to do? And he said, I just want to thank you for being so supportive of this, so supportive of me.

I think it was that feeling of being seen and acknowledged for my part, my role. You know, that it wasn't taken for granted.

Yeah, I think so too. The courage for Mahmoud to go is obvious. I think the courage for me to be on board is more understated. And I think he could see that. And that courage comes from love.

I think I would tell myself to temper fear with hope.

So we're all in my parents' living room. It was middle of August or something, I think, in 2016. Their formal living room, which is also, I think, interesting. And my husband was there, my parents, his parents. And my understanding going into it was that this is where my husband and I were going to share this decision that was, if not necessarily mutual, but we both had aligned on.

Fear is one way of looking at the future, of evaluating all that could go wrong. But if you let hope in too, you know, hope can prevail and the future can be much brighter than fear would have you think.

Don't expect it to be easy. You know, there's so much now, especially around ease and instant gratification. This love does not follow that path. This love is not convenient. So you have to get out of that space of wanting the love that serves you and recognizing that this kind of love is your in service. Your service builds a love like this.

But then it was more the parents in particular really trying to talk me out of it. So lots of questions from his parents, my parents. I remember my mom specifically saying, he doesn't hurt you. He's not a bad person. And his mother saying something about how, you know, he took me traveling to so many countries.

It was like a case being made by everyone about why what I am deciding is wrong and how he's right and I need to course correct. And I think that's probably the peak of loneliness for I felt so solitary and so alone in that decision. And it was like, is my judgment off? Like, have I just been interpreting the last three years wrong?

It had such an impact on my psyche of like, I can't trust anything I think or feel or decisions I make. I can't even make eye contact with anybody because I felt so ashamed. And I'm looking at my parents' rug. And I just, I don't know what I reached into within myself, one little like flame left of like, maybe I am right.

Maybe I just need to trust this tiny shred I have left of certainty in myself and belief that what I think and feel and understand matters. And I just said, I can't do it anymore. And I looked at my husband at the time then, and I knew how much I was hurting him. I knew how much I was hurting everybody. And I felt like the most selfish and terrible human being, but I knew it needed to be done.

I didn't really hear about marriage as this really joyful or emotionally connected type of union. It seemed like much more. You marry somebody that you have a lot of shared characteristics with, you have children with them, and you raise those children.

It's like somebody has to call the time of death, and I just had to do it.

There wasn't anything wrong with him. Sure, he's not emotionally complicated, but maybe emotionally being simple is a good thing.

It felt like I had possibility again and that that was a good thing, that there was joy and excitement and anticipation. And it wasn't even for a different person. When I made the decision to end the marriage, it was never with the idea that I would meet a better person or have a better marriage. It was with the idea that I may be alone, but And that's okay.

Like, that is a better place to be than the loneliness of being married in this marriage. And so it was like that just burst open and life could be so many things and that wasn't scary anymore. I am so damn happy for you.

It was exciting. And then once I got on the apps, it's interesting because they ask you your marital status on these apps. And there's a never married option. One of them didn't have single. It had never married. or divorced or widowed, I think was another option. So I had to select divorce. I couldn't put single.

And so it was from the get-go on my profile, it's right there, which, you know, I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it filters out anybody who's just not going to be interested in someone who's been divorced. But on the other hand, it's just so reflective of some of the stigma still that that's a filter. Yeah.

Regardless of my first experience, it was important for me to meet someone who was Muslim. That was just something that I knew was non-negotiable for me and for the marriage I wanted and the lifestyle I wanted. And so I only went on apps specific to the Muslim community. And so there's two. At that time, they were called Minder, like Muslim Tinder, and then Musmatch.

Yeah, I think it was a little bit more passive. It was just sort of starting to almost... Just start to think about the next chapter. I think that's really what it was about. Just what could it look like for me to find someone and be married again?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing was just I wanted to feel a sense of home and belonging. And like, this is my person. This is my best friend. And that's what I wanted. I just wanted the person who is going to be my emotional rock.

So it sounds really simple, I think, Anna, but... It doesn't. I don't think it does. I actually really don't think it does. Yeah, I just feel like so many little things have to line up to have that, even though you can distill it down into one phrase. I feel like it's just such an abstract and complex and multi-layered need.

So I met Mahmoud that fall. He trained in the same program as me. He was doing family medicine and I was doing psychiatry. Both of us were at UT Southwestern. So we were both residents at the same time. And he was this tall, dark and handsome, literally. I mean, he is. There you go, girl. That's all you need. He's 6'2". He has a full head of dark hair.

And one of the earliest memories now that I have of him, before I even knew he was Mahmoud, knew he was single or somebody who I would end up married to, I just have this memory of him leading the evening prayer for this community iftar that we had on campus. Wow.

Those moments where I was really vulnerable talking about something and the reaction wasn't like an emotional hug. It was just, it was, those were so painful.

I guess the most meaningful interaction... that I remember was we were at this event around like patient bias and discrimination towards physicians. And I just remember he was engaged, like he was reflective and talking about his experiences. And so I just thought it was really interesting that, you know, he was participating and had a lot of insightful things to share.

But I still didn't know he was single. Right. Well, how did you figure out if he was? So I would sometimes activate my profile, yeah, deactivate them and just be like, it feels like shopping at Ross. Like you're just rifling.

You're just like sifting and there's just so much garbage. And then you find that one treasure. So anyways, I had not found that one treasure. And so I had logged off and then I'm not sure what prompted me

Oh, so you matched.

So you swiped and you matched. I swiped and it was an immediate match. So he had already swiped on me.

So we went for poke. Okay. It's funny because there's a couple details I remember about that evening, too. Like, I was trying to decide between these two bowls, and he, like, knew right away what he wanted, and I'm just taking forever to decide. And he's like, okay, you know what? She just wants this. And so— Oh! Yeah. Wait, did you like that or did you not?

Because it was... It can go either way, I know. But the funny thing is, even now, I'm always like that with him. I'm almost like, should I do this or this? Do I want this or this? Like, I'm just like, that is just so me. Like, I can just be so indecisive and so overthinking. And he just, like, moves things along.

And then I remember when we were talking, he noticed something on the mural in the background that... And we kind of made conversation about that. And I just remember that detail because there was this, I'm present. I'm present and I'm noticing things and I'm responding to what's happening in my environment. I'm responding to what you're saying.

And there was a responsiveness that I really noticed right away and that I really enjoyed right away.

He has this ability when he's listening to you to make you feel like he's really just taking it all in and really it matters to him. Like he's being affected by what you're saying. I mean, even the topics we would talk about, they would carry over from one time we met to another, or he would remember something that I had mentioned and follow up on it.

It just felt like he was excited and curious about life.

Oh, yeah. He was certain really early on. I mean... How early? I remember him bringing it up like six weeks into meeting. He was like, I want to know where this is going and where your head is at. I think this is one of those things, Anna, where...

To somebody who's not in our community, that might seem like really forward because again, we're talking about a different construct because for us, that's there from the beginning. And so it's like, is this heading in that direction or not? But for me, I didn't feel that right away. It just wasn't as straightforward for me as it was for him. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, I would say that was the biggest part of it. I mean, looking back, I don't think there were major reservations. I mean, there was like a couple of things about Mahmoud, like he could be a little bit forgetful or, you know, like I remember he left his phone in the fitting room and I was like, oh, my God, he's going to leave a kid at the park. Yeah.

He was watching TV or something, and I just went into our room, and I sat down, had my back against the door, and I just cried. And that's when I think I really understood this is not something that's sustainable. I liken it to death by a thousand paper cuts.

Like I would definitely catastrophize these things. I was like looking for the red flags, you know? Sure, sure, sure, sure. But I think all of that was fear. I think I was like, I have to be very vigilant of the things that can go wrong because I miss those things the first time and I can't afford to miss them a second time.