I find my way to the Pinterest app for two main reasons: first, to get some ideas for my sketchbook, and then to enjoy the cartoon illustrations.

Cartoons have always held a curious place in my mind. As a young kid, I imagined they were real and had a world of their own, and then explored what could be ways to find my way into their world.

The easiest I found was watching them.

A few weeks ago, when sleep refused to come, engrossed in watching the cartoon pics, I came across a picture and immediately went inside and dozed off in a cosy corner.

The picture was of a modest room in a village, and the children were fast asleep, cosied up with their parents.

I don’t know what came over me; the image seemed to understand my yearning and longing and embrace me in itself, lulling me to sleep.

The next day, the experience lingered on.

Many decades ago,there came a time when “space” became an issue.

Having found their space, Abba’s (Uncle) family had to move out of the joint family home, and my sibling and I moved into the newly vacant room, trying hard to adjust to the new empty space they left behind.

In search of space, both families ended up creating a huge void never fully understood by either.

In my need to understand what unfolded, I would often stare at the Juhi (jasmine) climber clinging to the window, with sparse leaves and very few flowers. It had silently stood witness to good and bad times that unfolded beyond the window, exhausted from being a witness, perhaps had grown weak, and was clinging hard to the Parnala (water pipe) against the incessant winds.

As a young adult, when I found I had more freedom to choose than I had imagined, I quickly moved back to my old room and shifted my parents into this room.

I believe a person not only occupies a space but also a presence, and it is difficult to build or create one’s own in the already existing form of space of someone else’s.

Then came a time when Abba (Uncle), who moved out, and my Dad, who readily agreed to move into a different room, passed away, leaving a huge void of time and space behind.

It’s been more than a decade since their passing, and when I believed I’d coped enough, healed enough, an uncanny image in the cartoon transported me back to a space of yearning and longing.

And when I gave myself the permission to move beyond staring at the image to being there in imagination,it was also able to offer the solace I sought.

I do not have all the answers to these waves of Grief and Loss, but I know what I need to do when sleep refuses to come again, where to find that kind warmth inside me and slip into a deep slumber.

Warmly,

Mehnaz Amjad.