Last Friday was Eid.

For us Muslims, it marks the end of Ramadan. A day of celebration, of gathering, of food and gratitude.

I sat at the table and tried to be present for it.

The Weight of It

It’s a strange thing, to celebrate when so many people who share your faith, your language, your food, your prayers are dying.

Palestine. Iran. Congo. The list doesn’t get shorter.

I don’t know what to do with that. I’m not sure anyone does.

There’s a kind of guilt that comes with celebration during grief. Not the clean, functional kind that tells you to do something, but a quieter kind that just sits with you while you eat.

I kept thinking: somewhere, someone who would have celebrated Eid is not celebrating it this year. Not because they didn’t want to. Because they can’t.

Still, We Ate

I don’t think the answer is to stop celebrating. To shrink into silence as if that helps anyone.

But I also couldn’t pretend to be fully present in the joy when so much of the world was not.

Maybe that’s what this Eid was for me. Not quite celebration. Not quite mourning. Something in between that doesn’t have a clean name.

A meal eaten with gratitude and grief at the same time.

I don’t know if that’s the right way to hold it. But it was the only way I had.