7 pm isn’t really a time for my creative writing but I’ll tell you this. As folly as it sounds, I have a quote from a movie that’s been stuck in my mind for over a year now. Actually, for years.

“Don’t forget to notice the collateral beauty”

What a weird sentence to use to console a grieving person who’s just had a dear one leave the world. I remember when I heard the quote years ago, I instantaneously smiled. But, truthfully speaking, I don’t even know why I smiled back then. The true deep meaning of the quote never really sank into my conscious mind until years after. Or was it merely my formation of a meaning? Whether my subconscious passed on some understanding of the saying, after having shaped my experiences, to my conscious mind or it being a unanimously standard context of the quote, I don’t know. All I know is this: we, as humans, think of death as the biggest tragedy of all; when a death occurs, we feel that our lives have ended; we feel there is nothing beyond the grass that is beneath our feet; we are unable to mount or even fathom any further life stages after the departure of the souls of our loved ones. We are unable to formulate how our lungs will be able to perform the very next oxygen pull. Why?

لأنو في ناس كدا، موتهم أو فراقهم حرفياََ بشيل نَفَسَكْ معاهم

But even the “biggest tragedy of all” has some hidden beauty. The only people who know this are those strangers to the victim of death, who have had their own taste of medicine a while back, and the victim’s own family. Only, the sensing of the beauty for the latter is not immediate; it takes place a while after the occurrence, after all the chaos has perished out & some pseudo-nothingness remains as an aftertaste.
This beauty begins to be incarnated within us following the occurrence, & continues to be incarnated for the years after, until eventually our own time comes. We embody character traits of the departees & incorporate their from time-to-time acts of goodness into our daily lives. Allow me to shed light onto one subtle example of the title of this piece of writing. Notice the 1 to 10 ratio in the previous sentence; the acts of goodness the departees allegedly spend only a couple of years performing may be ones inherited to their loved ones to spend doing for the rest of their lives. & if they’re lucky, this remainder of their lives may be what exceeds a decade. The departees, alas to their oblivion, are initiators of something beyond them, something way bigger than them.

Death also has a direct proportionality with us; it affects us not only indirectly via our late loved ones but also directly. See, what it makes you realize is how that last ever fight with your friend was needless; how you could’ve simply chosen to have said “Thank you” with a smile to your mum after she made you that much needed cup of tea instead of greeting the encounter with silence because you saw it “unnecessary” to respond otherwise; how much of a difference it would’ve made to have picked up that apple that fell off the old lady’s grocery bag, how much it would’ve meant to her, how much that prayer she would’ve subsequently made for you would’ve saved you. Literally saved you.
Death makes us realize how trivial life really is, how unimportant and unessential badness is & how glorious goodness is. It motivates us to strive to become better people even if in the tiniest of ways. Even if in ways that seem “unseen”.

On a very personal note, & as a means to portray illuminating illustration to you, I am now more motivated to better my family kidship because of an inspiring relative who passed away a few weeks ago; my sister commented to me a few nights ago that she admires my occasional acts of boldness that she believes I inherited from my dad. That’s when it hit me that I had been subconsciously obsessing over the trait (boldness) because following the years of his death, I had been so very fond of this trait he possessed. I have noticed with my own naked eyes certain people incorporate charity into their day to day lives because of inspiration from a late loved one. I have seen people increase acts of kindness for that same reason. I have seen the character development forced in a household where one is lost simply because, there is no other choice. I’ve seen the pain of loss foster writers, painters and other forms of artists, along with their products, into this world.

All of these & others I’m sure, are collateral beauties of death, the “biggest tragedy of all”.

With tender love,
SE.

Dedicated to the souls of the two main inspirers of this piece: my dear father Elamin Mustafa Elamin & my dear relative Mohamed Yahya ElHassein