The first thing I learned in the kitchen wasn't how to cook — it was how to wait.
Fire doesn't respond to urgency. It responds to patience. I didn't know it then, but cooking was teaching me a language my life would later need.
I don't remember the first dish I ever made, but I remember how it felt to stand in front of heat and trust that something would come together. The kitchen was the only place where time slowed down for me. Where my hands stayed busy and my thoughts finally quieted.
At 26, people expect answers. A plan. A finished version of yourself. But the kitchen never asked me who I was becoming — only that I show up, pay attention, and respect the process.
Cooking didn't save me overnight. It stayed with me instead. In small moments. In meals that didn't turn out right. In flavors I kept adjusting because something felt missing — the same way my life felt for a long time.
I didn't know it yet, but every pot I stirred was teaching me how to stay running wasn't an option. A small chuckle escapes my mouth as I replay the darkest moments of my life three years ago—when I believed I had everything and nothing, all at once. I had walls, but no shelter. People around me, yet nowhere to go. I didn't understand then that losing direction can feel exactly like being trapped.
Those days didn't arrive loudly. They crept in. Slowly. Through unanswered questions, heavy silences, and nights where sleep felt like betrayal because closing my eyes meant reliving everything I was trying to survive. I watched myself become smaller to make space for pain that was never meant to belong to me.
I disintegrated quietly. Not in a way that alarms people—but in the way that makes you invisible. I stopped recognizing my own reflection. The woman staring back at me carried my face, but not my fire. I was present in body, absent in spirit, moving through life as if on borrowed time.
Yet even in that unraveling, something stubborn stayed. My hands still reached for flour. For heat. For the comfort of creating something that could not abandon me. When everything else fell apart, the kitchen remained honest. If I showed up, it gave something back.
I didn't rebuild myself the way people expect healing to look. There was no sudden clarity, no triumphant return. Growth came quietly—like dough rising in the dark. Unseen. Uncelebrated. Real.
What broke me didn't end me. It made room. And in that space, I began again—piece by piece, softer, wiser, and no longer afraid of becoming someone new.
****************
The morning Azan coming in just as I pull myself up from the bed. I stretch myself and remain silent until the azan finished and recites the morning prayer. I shift my eyes to the other side of the bed where three small varying figures laid out with soft snores emanating from them, rising on my feet with a goofy smile to make way to the bathroom to get ready for Fajr prayer and get on with the day. It's usually not grand but for the long run I've seen worse and been through it as well.
It's always lighter and refreshing after the morning prayer it feels as if I have grasped the rest of the day even though it's just began which means I gotta head into the kitchen to get breakfast ready and make Emyr lunch before I wake him up in thirty minutes.
"Asalam Alaykum, how was your sleep?" My elder sister Nuray walked in giving me a small hug and a kiss. "Wa alaikum salaam, Alhamdulillah it was great" I replied whilst returning the gestures. "It's almost 6:30am, just finish up here and I'll get Emyr ready inshaAllah" I blew a kiss her way and flipped the bread on the pan. "Jazakillah khayr sis".
I could hear what started softly to a full blown chaos, shaking my head Emyr has always been-special in his own kinda way, his energy always bursts the room. "Emyr c'me on it's too early for all that, quit messing around and put your uniforms on please, you gotta be on time for your first day, yallah Habiby now!" I shouted from the kitchen to try and calm his stormy mood, I hear his soft giggles and a few more rants between them before he complies, I shake my head because in no time he'd wake up- yup! He just did. Soft cries from the room that were later accompanied by softer cries. "Emyr! You just woke Badr and Hera up! Subhanallah you were too loud!"
Walked out the kitchen to the room Hera my two year old daughter was seated pulling Badr while sniffing "It's okay sweety Ummy will get him" she lit up after seeing me and broke into a cheeky smile, her big cleopatra eyes with brown orbs a complete replica of mine. That's the only thing she got from me by the way, "it's okay my sweeties.. shhshshshsh, lay down...shhshshsh" I pat them softly until they fall back to sleep.
"Ummi! I'm done!" An exhausted sigh escaped my mouth, sliding down the bed and out of the room quietly not to wake them up making way to the living room and grabbing the keys off the hook, adjusting my niqab infront of the mirror before I give myself a slight nod of approval.
"Off we go, Bismillah"
"Yes! I can't wait to see Iman and Liu"
"Aren't you forgetting something..."
"Ohhh yeah In-shaAllah"
"Perfect, now put your seatbelt on"
The twenty minutes ride to and from school happily came to an end as I guide the car to the driveway and set it to parking. I see my sister at the porch waving at me and in my mind I figured it's the kids. I shake my heads towards her acknowledging her gesture while making gentle steps to the house.
"Asalam alaikum...."
"Wa alaikum salaam....."
The reply itself was odd, the kids not around so I guess they still sleep.
"Is something up... you seem tense"
Her face instantly fell as she pulled an envelope from the coffee table that I hadn't noticed until now and brings it closer to my eyes.
"A mail from the Embassy..."
I quickly grabbed it to see its contents
"He's knows Bahy..... that's a Note verbale...."
My hands shook and my eyes widen as I read every single word from it, I never knew a small paper could weigh so heavily, hot tears started pouring down my eyes like a fountain.
"No!..this.. but I, Nuray..." this is not how I anticipated this morning or this day, ya Allah! I even forgot how to speak the level of disbelief, hurt and pain that just struck me from just a small piece of paper. I felt warm hands on my cheeks as my sister lifts my sullen face and into a tight hug.
"InshaAllah it'll be okay.... I know it, we all do, you'd never kidnap your kids".