Forty-six. I feel proud of this number.  

I was not supposed to take reaching this age for granted.  

When I was a baby, only nine months old, polio attacked my body with a severity that would shape the rest of my life. Medicine, statistics, and the reality of that illness could have suggested a much more difficult path, and perhaps a shorter one. Forty-six years ago, my body survived an attack that could have defined the limits of my life. Forty-six years later, I am still here. Still moving through life, still learning, still fighting, still loving, still becoming (hopefully with a little more wisdom and a little more courage). Still alive.  And I learned that sometimes life can surprise us with beauty and kindness.

Like for many of my friends, the past year has been filled with far too many personal challenges, disappointments, difficult moments and struggles. The accumulation of petty daily challenges and humiliations just to survive, as well as the grief of loss far beyond my personal circumstances. My already restricted life has narrowed down even further, to just barely coping with each new crisis. But perhaps the greatest gift of growing older is finally understanding that a life is not measured by what a person can show to the world, or by how little they have suffered. Life is measured by how much love, meaning, courage and humanity we manage to create despite all the suffering. For as long as there is life, there is hope. Perhaps that is why, this year, I have been thinking so much about love. The love that makes existence worthwhile and which remains at the core of our being when everything else is peeled away.  

Not the love we speak about. The love that we do. Choosing to care about the interests of someone you love, even when their interests are not identical to yours. Standing beside someone when they are weak, not using their weakness against them. Protecting someone’s dignity, when they cannot protect it themselves. Staying present when leaving would be easier. Being alive is not about merely surviving what was supposed to destroy us. It is about what we choose to do with the life we were given. Love is not just a sudden feeling or a pleasant moment, that can just as quickly be cast aside. It is something we build and protect, something we need to practice and choose, again and again.  

We live in times when walking away has become much easier than repairing. A time of “quick fashion” and growing landfills - not only in politics and at the shopping mall, but also in our personal relationships. We seem to have forgotten what to do with the love that remains when anger, disappointment, fear, pride or exhaustion have blocked the path forward. So how do we relearn the patience and hard work to carefully make our way through the rubble of what has collapsed? When each of us is trapped in the maze of our own personal disasters, how can we relearn to communicate with each other and jointly shape another life? Strong love is not pretty words, but a slow and painful process of learning how to deal with the problems that we face.  

Love comes in all colours and shapes. There is the love between parents and children, where a mother or father may spend years quietly putting someone else’s needs before their own. There is the love we have for people who are not connected to us by blood at all, but who become family through loyalty, trust and shared experiences. There is the love of friendship — the friend who checks in without being asked, who remembers what you did not say, who stays through difficult seasons rather than only appearing for celebrations. And there is love for a place, a community, a homeland: a love that should not mean blindness to its faults, but rather the courage to continue struggling for something better. Romance may receive all the poems and gifts, but love is a precious garden that contains nettles and muddy patches, as well as fragrant roses.  

This past year has taught me that love does not always arrive in grand gestures. Sometimes it is a message sent at exactly the right moment. A person who stays on the phone when you have nothing beautiful to say. Someone who remembers that you are tired, and makes room for your weakness without making you feel weak. The friend who believes in you when you temporarily cannot believe in yourself, and who stands beside you without asking what they will receive in return. Sometimes love is simply being able to say: I am here.    

During the past year I fear that I may not always have been able to express how much your presence has meant to me.  So, to all the people who have given me that feeling this year — thank you.  

To my family.  

To my friends.  

To the people who have supported me in silence and those who have spoken up for me.  

To those who offered practical help, emotional strength, kindness, patience, laughter or simply their presence.  

To those who stayed close during difficult moments.  

To all those who reminded me that even in complicated years, life still contains beautiful people: may you all receive support in those moments when you need it the most, and may you find love, even in those places where you expect it the least. Remember that the ugly noise and smoke from things that collapse will pass. Remember that the rubble around us is just stones. We are still alive.

I don’t know what the next year will bring. But I know this: I have reached 46 and I am proud of it.  

Here’s to 46.  

And here’s to every person who has made this journey a little lighter. Wherever you are: stay safe.  

Chavia Ali

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