The Fabric Of Our Identity
There is a Somali proverb that effectively captures my feelings after losing my Ayeeyo, “Af hooyo waa lama huraan.”
She didn’t feel all that great — that much I gathered on that August morning. Ayeeyo complained of a dull chest ache: slow and pressing, but bearable. She was a strong woman, my Ayeeyo, my mother’s mother.
Even at the age of seventy, she was full of energy, the kind that made her snap at my mom for not combing my hair or scold her grandchildren for being less than competent in Somali. She was hard, too. Every time she reprimanded us, I lowered my gaze to the floor, too afraid to meet her eyes.
Blue rings encircled her dark umber irises, severe and punishing. A look of disapproval dominated her brown face; her light-colored eyebrows scrunched together to create lines across her forehead like the furrows of the land she left years ago.
Ayeeyo looked like this when she found anything remotely displeasing. One day while trailing behind her bold stride, her nostrils suddenly flared up as she ordered me to turn away. A young couple was making out on the street corner. Her eyes were wide.
“Uuuf,” she huffed in a not-so-subtle manner while we passed them. Clicking her tongue, Ayeeyo threw her dark blue scarf that was coming undone back over her shoulder in one sweeping motion. Then she put her hands together, palms facing the sky, and squeezed her eyes shut muttering almost inaudibly,
“Ilahiyo, noo soo hanooni,” Oh God, please protect us.
“Ameen,” I responded back half-heartedly pressing my lips together in a thin line. I didn’t see what the big deal was. We saw kissing on T.V. all the time but would flip the channel when we heard her struggling to get down the stairs, making her way to the living room.
Even though PDA came on T.V. often, we were confident in watching inappropriate shows in front of her because she didn’t know English anyway. With her attention elsewhere, Ayeeyo would seat herself on the red prayer rug with her fingers on the prayer beads and her eyes half-closed and glassy. She supplicated mindfully, zoning out the buzz of dialogue coming from the television; she couldn’t be bothered with the language. She would rather put energy in memorizing the Holy Qu’ran though she forgot every line she memorized. I used to wish Ayeeyo would put that effort into learning English.
On a particular fall afternoon, I accompanied Ayeeyo to her hospital appointment. While checking her cholesterol the nurse smiled politely at her. Ayeeyo uttered the only words she really knew in English and even then she slurred those words that sounded too difficult on her tongue, “Hallo, hawr yoo?”
I winced as color flooded my cheeks, grinning at the nurse with a closed mouth. It didn’t help when the nurse asked my grandmother when her last visit was and Ayeeyo responded with “good.”
The nurse smiled and glanced at me for help but I was too busy wondering how she lived here for 15 years and couldn’t at least get the greeting right. The nurse just looked it up on the chart.
Ayeeyo received a phone call from Somalia not long after that hospital visit. Her sister had died in a car accident. She wailed and I rushed to her side, shocked. But what could I say to my Ayeeyo, who sat on her bed doubled over in sobs, when we did not speak the same language? I patted her solemnly on the back. Now, she truly had nothing to go back to.
A couple of months after, Ayeeyo fell from her bed. I leaned over her seizing body. She was foaming at the mouth. I dialed 911 and the paramedics told me to do CPR.
“Nah joojii! Wa disheey! Allah, hooyothey! Ilyahio, wey dhimateey! Bis waye!” Stop it! You’re killing her! God, my mother! Oh God, she’s dead! That’s it! My mom shrieked at me and pushed my hands away from Ayeeyo’s chest.
“Hooyo, stop! I need to do this!” I yelled, mustering the only Somali I was capable of.
Even though she wasn’t taken off life support until two weeks later, she was gone. We wouldn’t speak again.
There is a Somali proverb that effectively captures my feelings after losing my Ayeeyo, “Af hooyo waa lama huraan.” That is to say, language is crucial to the fabric of our identity. To know Somali is to know myself, my history and my ancestors. For times when war and calamity tear families and a nation apart, language is the way to preserve our identities and the histories and lives of our loved ones.
Nasteho Ali is currently the Civic Engagement Coordinator for a nonprofit called ACEDONE that works with East African families and refugees in the Greater Boston Area. Nasteho is a native of Boston and works to support young people through coordinating a youth leadership initiative and organizing a mentorship program with other dedicated young professionals in the Somali community. In her free time, Nasteho enjoys journaling, spending time with loved ones and finding different ways to become more spiritually intuned.
