The Soft Archive

Habibti… Come here. Sit beside me for a moment. I know your heart is hurting. I know. And wallahi… if I could take this pain from you myself, I would. Do you think it was easy for me to leave you behind? Ya binti… I was crying too. Not because I was afraid of Allah. Never that. But because you are my daughter. Because I loved you so much that even while my body was failing, I was still thinking ab...

This is a conversation with someone who isn't here anymore. It's about grief that still speaks. Still asks questions. Still waits for an answer that won't come the way it used to. Through spoken word, memory, and everything I don't know how to carry quietly, this is where I say things I wish I could say out loud. It's about losing the person you would run to- and learning what it means to stand wh...

Episode Title: The Letter Baba Left Me In this episode of The Soft Archive, I read and reflect on a letter my father left behind—found among legal documents, funeral arrangements, and the quiet structure of a life he prepared for me before he passed. What I thought would be paperwork became something else entirely: a final act of care, a form of protection, a continuation of fatherhood beyond his...

Episode Title: Day Four in Thailand In this episode of The Soft Archive, I tell the story of a moment that didn’t look like healing—but felt like relief. Three weeks after my father passed, I found myself unable to do the simplest things. Grief had settled into my body in a way that made even getting out of bed feel impossible. This episode begins there: with stillness, with hunger, with the quiet...