Finding the Dharma (Part 1)
The Flotation Device I Never Thought I Would Need
After a year of distance learning during the global pandemic, we returned to regular, in-person school. On the first day, I posed with my three children in front of the mascot for our traditional back-to-school photo. The previous school year had been a tedious, soul-draining year full of unknowns and stress. But, we were healthy. We were still here. We were eager and ready for this next chapter, albeit nervous. I posted the picture on social media. Somebody commented, “You always look happy.”
What a compliment. It felt better than “you look like you lost weight” or “you look so pretty,” all of the usual compliments that would stroke my ego. But how could I look happy? I felt like I had aged a hundred years during quarantine.
There was a time in my life when a simple back-to-school photo would have had me ugly crying in the shower at night from the shame of not having their father there to share in the moment. For days, weeks, months, and even years after my husband unexpectedly passed away, whenever I would show up to places with intact families and the kind of normalcy I would never have again, I felt irreparably broken. I hated that I had been such a planner throughout my life— planning each child down to the day— only to find myself raising a family alone. I struggled to understand why the universe had dealt me these cards.
Weeks after my husband passed, I happened to read “You are Here” by Thich Nhat Hanh. I actually started the book the summer before, back when my life was “normal” and there was no urgency for life’s greatest answers, but now I was drowning in my agony and looking for a flotation device. I drew a star next to the line: “If there are things that are causing you to suffer, you have to know how to let go of them. Happiness can be attained by letting go, including letting go of your ideas about happiness.” It seemed easier said than done.
I think about that previous version of myself, desperate to find the antidote to her suffering. She would have never in a million years believed that she could be happy again.
But here I am. Possibly even happier than before. I feel eternally grateful to Buddhism for giving me the Dharma to light my path moving forward. It is what keeps me focused through the good and the bad and the ups and downs, helping me make the most out of my life.
I am a half-Palestinian, half-German woman who was baptized Melkite Catholic. My grandmother was born in Nazareth — a very religious, holy city that I have visited numerous times. I tried to be a Catholic. Somebody even made me their child’s godmother. I just could never shake the feeling that it was trying to control me rather than lead me to my liberation. Consequently, I became suspicious of all organized religion.
Years later, I was hired as a teacher at a new school. I befriended the teacher in the classroom next door to mine, who happened to be Japanese and Shin Buddhist. First I fell in love with him, and after he died I fell in love with his Buddhism.
It was easy to agree with the ideas of Buddhism on paper. You could say I was even an armchair Buddhist before my husband passed away. I read a lot of books. We sent our children to dharma school. But I often let him take the children on Sundays while I stayed home with the baby. I didn’t think I needed anything formal. I was so jaded that I refused to chant or bow whenever I attended service. I liked Buddhism, but I wasn’t going to call myself a Buddhist.
When I found myself a 34-year-old widow with a 13-month-old, 3-year-old, and a 6-year-old, I became gutted by my despair. I didn’t have the tools to deal with the magnitude of that kind of suffering. For the first time, I realized I needed something, but I didn’t know what.