Mining for memories

Remembering my best friend to continue her legacy

Autumn feels like a time of renewal and regeneration, even more so now as it’s the first one since my friend Roqiya passed away. The world looks different, leafy green trees lining suburban streets turn brown, the weather becomes slightly colder, something shifts in the air and my mind always feels a little clearer. 

Summertime is a good distraction from painful feelings, weeks filled with fun times and good vibes. The sun is out, the parks are full of weed smoke and suspiciously XL-bully-looking dogs, and there is always some disruption to your routine - my own wedding, in my case. But autumn always arrives, very demure, very calm and collected, and the natural rhythm of things returns.

I’ve had a lot of time to ponder on what feels so isolating about grieving the death of a best friend in the hope that I can better self-soothe and navigate this awful loss. An isolation that is not because I don’t have a support system or love around me, and certainly not because I’m the only person in the world to have experienced such a painful loss - there is hardly a more shared human phenomenon than grief - but because the way two people love each other is such a profoundly unique experience. 

Photo Credit: Ruqaiya Haris

A beautiful bond made up of a summary of seemingly mundane but impactful, finite moments -  storytelling over brunch about ridiculous things that had happened to us, walking down Green Lanes at night in linked arms to get some Turkish knafeh from the cafe that makes it fresh in front of you, late-night phone calls and venting sessions when our friendship became long-distance, visiting her in Istanbul and picking up the stray but well loved kittens in the peaceful grounds of Fatih mosque, sending each other niche memes about Muslim girlhood, the painful life events we supported each other through and the secrets we shared that she, quite literally, took to the grave. 

Asking her opinion on a pair of shoes before buying them, “the beige Uggs are nicer than the black ones but they’re both ugly Ru” she told me in the days before she died. I bought the black ones anyway and I think of her fondly whenever I wear the ugly Uggs. Where I was happy to step out in leggings and dirty Air Forces to go for a walk around the park, she was a ‘make every day count’ OG modest fashion girly with a loyal Instagram fanbase asking her to tag her outfits. She was the yin to my yang, and I loved the way she made me feel. How I would sit on the overground heading home after hanging out with her, nourished, uplifted and ready to take on anything life threw my way, knowing I would get to debrief it all with her after.

My memory is hazy at the best of times. I can’t remember where I put my keys or what I had for breakfast two days ago, but now I am tasked with remembering every wholesome moment spent with my friend. It feels like a heavy burden to bear, to not just have to live without her love and laughter, but to have to keep those memories alive or attempt to unlock the parts of my brain straining to remember a random afternoon in the university library all these years later. I want to remember it all because remembering her is what keeps her presence around me.

This time eight years ago, we began our final year of university. She was back from her year abroad in Turkey and I was graduating late after finally realising you have to actually do some studying at uni, not just socialise and occasionally turn up to lectures. With most of our peers having graduated already, we spent more time together.  That was when she went from being an acquaintance to a sister I couldn’t imagine my life without.

We would spend hours avoiding work, gossiping together, attending protests and political events, going on little adventures around central London, to art galleries or restaurants we hadn’t tried before. We were incredibly different people in our upbringing and our lifestyles, but somehow there was a big enough overlap for us to find enjoyment in many of the same things. Both our intellectual interests and notably, taking photos of each other to our hearts’ content, knowing neither of us would get sick of this like others would. No, she would take photos from all necessary angles and give me direction while doing so, “lift your chin up” - a true friend.

Photo Credit: Ruqaiya Haris

She was so hilarious - her aunty-like advice that seemed far beyond her years, scolding me for anything she perceived as chaotic and messy, her cultural references that differed from mine as she was born in Algeria then lived in Syria during her childhood before moving to London. Once, when I mentioned Harry Potter, she told me she had only seen the first one, dubbed in Arabic, where Harry greets Hagrid with ‘assalamu alaykum’ and we both laughed so much. I liked explaining to her random 2000s pop culture trivia, and she would teach me so much about the politics of the Middle East. I could get lost in her facial expressions and her radiant smile. 

She was incredibly astute and poured her heart into her journalism, working at Al Jazeera in the months before she died. During this time she was posting daily on her social media about the plight of Palestinians which weighed heavily on her heart long before 7 October. She was boycotting companies complicit in Israeli apartheid for many years prior to the movement becoming as widespread as it is today. In the first 6 weeks of genocide in Gaza that she lived to see, she never stopped raising her voice for Palestine. And in some ways, continuing to talk about these injustices allows me to not only continue her legacy but also keep her memory and her work alive. She stood for truth.

As long as I knew her she would befriend and show up for all different types of people. Even though she grew up in a religious household and really knew her stuff about Islam, she didn’t judge or exclude other people like some religious people do. She would love meeting those from different walks of life and had this way of talking to someone that made them feel like they were the only person in the room. But if she saw me catching feelings for the wrong person, she wouldn’t hold back in giving me a reality check, “that man is not going to be father of your kids, Ru”. 

If I have to spend the rest of my life mining my own mind for memories, as well as learning of others’ own beautiful experiences knowing her, I will gladly do it. My faith and belief in the afterlife keep me connected with her and hopeful that we will meet again, but while I am left behind in this world I will do my best to continue to remember, and celebrate those memories which shaped who I am, for every person who gets to know me will get to know her too.