Samaiya Mushtaq

speaker

81 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2025 last heard Jun 2025

Samaiya Mushtaq’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Daily · ‘Modern Love’: If You Want This Kind of Love, Don’t Expect it to be Easy · 1 Jun 2025 podcast

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.

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.

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