On Survival and Sisterhood

Guest Blog by Author Shifa Saltagi Safadi

Lately, every morning, I get about ten minutes of awake time before it feels like the world is ending.

In those ten minutes- I rub the sleep from my eyes, do wudu, complete my Fajr prayer, and go downstairs to make my huge pot of coffee before my kids wake up and the duties of the day begin. And once I am settled with my hot mug on my favorite chair, I open my phone to look at my social media.

Cue the doom scrolling. I look through image after image of disaster, and all I feel is this deep aching sadness at not being able to stop all the horrible events going on in so many areas of the world and at home, here, in America.

We can witness the whole world from our very fingertips, and yet feel like we are not be able to do anything to change it.

That crisis overwhelms me, almost swallows me. And I wonder…. how do we survive these bad moments? How can we look for a glimmer of sunshine when it feels like our problems are snowballing bigger and bigger.

When I started writing my survival novel in verse SISTERS ALONE, I began with a simple premise. Tween gets stuck home, and has to navigate a monstrous blizzard and all the struggles that come with it, alone. As with my usual process of writing and plotting, I strove to dig deeper into the character and the plot to unearth the heart of my message- the theme.

What was I trying to say about survival? Was it that my main character learned to be confident in her own skills to survive? I could think of many beautiful middle grade books that relayed similar themes— HATCHET and ALONE mainly.

But for my story…something felt missing.

Pretty quickly, I realized the story needed something, or rather someone more— and that happened to be the main character’s sister.

Rama and Leena, the two sisters in my novel SISTERS ALONE have opposing personalities. Rama is fierce and focused, and Leena is forgetful and withdrawn. Both are reeling from the sudden death of their mother, and trying to navigate grief in their own individual ways. Leena uses a scrapbook to try to bring back the memories of before when their life wasn’t as broken. Rama tries to move on quickly from her grief, determined that if she can shape the future herself, bad things won’t happen again. Rama’s main struggle is in her intrusive thoughts and anxiety- which make her goal harder.

While the blizzard and the girls being home alone is the catalyst for the external plot, what makes Rama and Leena’s survival even harder is that their relationship is icy, shaped by scars and secrets. What makes their lives harder is that they are each going about their journeys of trying to heal alone.

They clash as the events of the blizzard strike disaster after disaster, and it is only by learning to hold onto each other (quite literally in some scenes), trusting each other, and being completely honest are they able to save each other, and themselves.

And in that journey is the theme of my story.

Survival goes hand in hand with sisterhood (a metaphor for community).

Leaning on those we love, getting support with both our external and our internal storms, empowers us to be able to withstand them.

The disasters we see online every day- we CAN do something to change them. We can reach out to each other via the very social media that brings this news to our doorstep. We can provide aid to our local food banks, donate our time and finances to support people struggling, and even provide kind comments of solidarity. Sometimes, being seen can be a much-needed balm to a person struggling.

We don’t need to do this survival thing alone.

In our tumultuous world, although it feels like unpredictable storms loom closer, about to sweep us away— leaning on each other can help us feel anchored, even if for just a moment.

And maybe while striving for that sunshine-shaped warmth of hope together, life might surprise us with a little bit of a winter miracle.

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SHIFA SALTAGI SAFADI is the National Book Award winning author of Kareem Between, the Amina Banana series, and several picture books, including The Gift of Eid. She has a bachelor’s degree in English literature, is a former ELA teacher, and is passionate about spreading a love of reading through storytimes and school visits. Shifa was born in Syria and immigrated to the US with her parents as a young girl. She lives near Chicago with her husband and four children.

Find her on Instagram @shifasaltagisafadi