The call to prayer sounded like my grandfather’s kitchen

Dear Delyara, I have not entered a mosque in twelve years. After my grandfather died, faith began to feel like a language I had forgotten how to speak without him. He used to wake before dawn, make cardamom tea, and listen to the call to prayer on a small radio balanced beside the sugar jar. This morning, I was delivering packages when the call to prayer came through the open window of a mosque near my route. I pulled over. The sound moved through the dark street, and for a moment I smelled my grandfather’s kitchen so clearly that I checked the passenger seat, expecting to see his chipped blue cup. I sat in the van until the prayer ended. A man leaving the mosque noticed me and waved. I waved back but did not go inside. I am not sure what I believe anymore. I only know that grief has kept one door closed so long that I began calling the hallway home. Today, hearing that familiar sound, I wanted to knock. I did not. But I remained parked there long enough for the sun to rise, and that felt like the closest I have come to prayer in years.