THE JOURNEY OF GRIEF……………2:38

Cherished moments for an unknown period

My letter of condolence to a dear friend on the death of his nephew………………

Dear B, Asalaam o alaikum,

I was deeply saddened to hear of the untimely death of your seventeen-year-old nephew. Every time a young boy dies I am reminded of what I heard at one of the khutbahs. The Imam said :

with the prolonged consistent and continuous supplications of a parent for her children they get a long and healthy life.

This makes me think that perhaps A’s mother and I did not pray long and consistently for our sons or at least not enough to elongate their existence on this earth.

But then I read in the Quran and also explained in the Hadith (paraphrased):

our time of death, our sustenance and our Qadar is predetermined and brought to us by an angel at 16 weeks gestation while we are in our mothers womb and pasted on our forelock/forehead. Eventually with time it gets covered up with tissue and thus others can no longer see it, but it remains is situ till the time is up.

Thus I go between the guilt of not having prayed enough for the salamati of my children versus my laying down my head with Sabr at my Qadar of losing my son before me.

A’s parents are obviously not at this point but will get there at some time in the future. Losing your child is like placing a hot brand on the heart of the parent, which sears it and never goes away. The response to the searing of the heart is of course completely individual and unforeseen.

You and T were there for us the night of Tariq’s accident. I have a surreal recollection of that time. It is sharp in its picture but sometimes hazy in emotion. It is the compassion and blessing of Allah Subhanawataala for making us incapable of fully reliving the emotions of that day.

A’s parents are blessed to have the two of you as their nearest and dearest. No matter when you decide to go to Pakistan, it will be a balm for their pain.

I cannot think of any advice for A’s parents to alleviate their pain or be able to survive this tragedy.

When I look back in these four years, I realize that I had to try medical and psychological grief support measures and read everything on grief help before I opened the book of Allah’s words and got to the point where I got help that eased my pain. It was a lot of struggle and searching in the words of Allah to get to this point and I still slip many a time.

However looking at how some other people find solace after grief tells me that delving into Allah’s words has not been an approach that they have taken.

In the throes of my grief, I was led by good friends in the direction of finding solace with my Creator. It started with a talk that Dr. S, a psychiatry resident, gave at Tariq’s memorial service at the mosque regarding the “Words of Solace” taken from the Quran. I hung on to them for a while and then I started my own search by googling “Sabr” in the Quran, because I wanted a quick fix. Of course the answer was ” no results”.

The study of the Quran cannot be done by googling a term. I eventually had to start from page one and struggle through each ayah trying to find a meaning that pertained to me and understand it’s potential to take the pain away.

After that at the various spiritual retreats that I went to I met people who were kind, empathic and patient in the path of Allah, and it reinforced my search for the balm for my never ending pain by reflecting on the words of Allah and putting this world and our presence or absence in it in a broader perspective.

I pray that Allah Subhanawataala guides A’s parents to compassionate loving God-fearing people who point them in the direction of Allah Subhanawataala’s therapeutic words that will help ease their pain. I know from experience that nothing else can.

The alternate option is painkillers and brain numbing drugs or other self-destructive acts, which are temporary and ruin not only one’s own life but also the life of all the family.

After the consistent support of family and friends, the rest of the journey they have to make on their own. This grief is one that stays with you till the day you die; there is no escape, no forgetting, and no true untrammeled joy anymore. The best one can hope for is that in serving others, one gives oneself as sadaqa with each act, for ones departed child.

Allah Subhanawataala has given you a kind heart and inshallah you will be able to reach out to the parents and sisters of A and bring them solace, and comfort, in your own special way. T’s serene presence will also be comforting for the family inshallah.

I pray that you may find the strength to be that beacon of light that the bereaved look for when they are blinded with pain. May Allah strengthen your emaan and grant you the ability and stamina to comfort your own brother in one of the most painful times of his life.

My prayers are for you, your family, and for A and his family. May Allah Subhanawataala give you all sabr- e- jameel.

Paul, and Shireen join me in sending their sincere heartfelt condolences; kindly convey these to your brother and his family.

With Salaam and duas,

A

Quran 2:38

………………….whosoever follows My guidance, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

WAR: My son, his son and your sons………….

Muslim cemetery, sarajevo: courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/louis_z_bickett_ii/3785658294/in/photostream/

Dedicated to the parents of Tariq, Imran, Ebad, Nabeel and all the parents who have lost their children to death………….

While the whole world watches the American President declare his intentions regarding the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I do the math and it translates into more dead sons and daughters and more grieving parents irrespective of which side you are on.

I am reminded that somewhere in a cemetery a father grieves over the untimely death of his young son. Here is an excerpt of a Ramadan night………….

I cannot wait to end the day of work to be with him. Even though he remains silent on my visits. The tree beside his grave has grown tall in these two years and has bent over his grave protectively to shade him from the relentless heat of summer.

I alight from the car and approach his grave. I search my pockets to look for my small Quran and I find them empty. In the past I have usually gone back to the car to get it. Tonight is the advent of the twenty seventh of Ramadan and suddenly I want to recite the Yaseen Shareef from memory for my son.

I begin the recitation and effortlessly the words flow from my heart and spill over my lips gathering the essence of my love and bestowing it on my son as he lies separated from me by a universe of infinity.

It has been said that the intent with which you recite Yaseen, is granted and recognized by Allah Subhanawataala without even uttering the intent in words……………..

Today, He Subhanawataala knows that I want to recite Yaseen shareef from memory and without the help of the musaf. I want it to flow from my heart, all of it, from beginning to end. I want to gift it to my son, complete in its entirety and essence.

As my wish is granted on this blessed night of the twenty seventh of Ramadan, I am overcome by a wonderful feeling……………I have recited the entire surah Yaseen from memory without a hesitation!

Meanwhile as the war machine gears up to make more graves all over the world, I grieve for the parents who are as of now innocent of the pain that comes with the news of your child’s death!

And I say:

Inna lil lahi wa inna elayhe rajaeown:

We come from Allah and to Him we shall return

HIS GAZE IN DEATH…………………

I am at the funeral parlor, they bring him out on a gurney at my request. His eyes are closed. He seems like he is sleeping, a peaceful expression on his face.

“May I see his eyes?” I ask the attendant and he removes something that is keeping his eyes shut. His eyes are open but they are not expressionless like the dead people you see in the movies. His gaze is focused on something……….that is moving away far into the horizon………………..

The Prophet (pbuh) was reported by Umm Salamah to have said “Verily when the spirit (Rooh) is taken the eyes follow it” (Sahih Muslim vol.2 p.437 no.2005).

The successful souls will be made to enter paradise as Allah said to the righteous souls “O soul (Nafs) at peace, come back to your Lord pleased with yourself and pleasing to Him. Enter among My devotees. Enter My paradise.” (Soorah al-Fajr 89:27-30)

RANDOM REMINDERS………….

I am working and I glance out of the window at the falling rain and wonder……if the grass is sprouting from the seeds I left on his grave……..

I sit down to write and someone has pushed the keyboard to the right making place for his left-handedness………..

Three butterflies chasing each other………

My days are sprinkled with the diamonds of my memories, clear scintillating and razor edged sharp with loss.

And I remind myself to say: Inna lil lahi wa inna elaye rajeown…..

UNTRAMELLED LOVE AND UNREMITTING GRIEF………………….

From the recesses of my mind seep out memories that have been uncalled for.  My two cousins and I have been asked to divide up my Aunt’s jewelry that she has left us after she died. This story belongs to one of them……………

They are diplomats on holiday. They are on the train from Karachi to Lahore. The entire air-conditioned first class compartment has been reserved for their family and the nanny.

Multan Station has been left behind and the train is on its last stretch to Lahore, with not much in the way of habitation between the two cities at least not in those days.

She is on the top berth and her baby brother is below, with the Nanny and her parents. She is a joyous kid, sensitive, kind, loving to the extreme and hungry for love.

She cries on parting from us even after a session of play while we live in the same town, and would soon see each other again.  I older than her has caught her imagination and she comes to me for hugs in between play with my youngest brother. She an immensely affectionate child in a family of what appears to me cynical detached parents from the diplomatic corp.

The Nanny is peeling an apple……….her knife pointing upwards as she expertly peels around it without interrupting the circle of the peel. “Who wants apple?” she asks in broken English, holding the knife and apple firmly in her hand and without taking her eyes of the peeling apple. The peel half hanging on to the last bit of apple.

“Me! Me! N jumps up and down in the upper berth and then she turns to jump down to be next to the Nanny. The knife is pointing upwards as the Nanny steadies the apple for its final separation from the peel, the trains lurches and N falls on top of the Nanny.

Suddenly the first class compartment becomes pandemonic. Confusion, shock and disbelief are written all over each person witnessing this horrific event.

As the Nanny tries to get out from under N, a rhythmic spurting of blood is noted from the heart of the child.

Someone pulls the chain and the train comes to a slow grinding halt, it is one of the village stations where normally Tezgaam does not stop.

The father, with the bleeding child in his arms, gets off the train and is running up and down the station platform, screaming……………….”is there a doctor somewhere, please save my child!” “Koi hay jo meri bacchi ko bacha lay”

I don’t know the condition of the others, the mother, the nanny, and the little boy.

The heart never keeps its lifeblood, like all unselfish beings it pushes the blood out to those parts of the body that need them most. N was like that, she was the life blood of affection of that family always gushing out her love to everyone around her but never getting as much back.

Her heart like her affection pumped all her lifeblood out onto the concrete platform, not even keeping a drop within her limp body. As the last vestiges of life left her body, her spirit melded into the hot winds of the unknown village., and no one answered the father’s call in this wilderness.

She is buried in Lahore and lies next to her grandfather who has joined her many years later.

The parents went back to their mundane life of a diplomat. Sometime later they had another daughter born to them, but never was there a child that had so much love to give than N.

Never was there a child who brought so much joy to everyone who played with her. Never was there a moment while I was with her that I would not feel sad and sorry for her and would then talk myself out of it, for this uncalled for emotion without a base.

I often wonder how her parents continued to live and laugh never sharing the depth of their sorrow with their family, or if they did, being a child myself I would not know, even though I was the confidante of my mother.

Why is it that now this memory seeps out of my mind? Is it compassion, or is it that the box in which it has been tightly held has opened and all painful memories are spilling out, and there is a need to be purged of pain by feeling pain?

I often wonder if N’s parents were aware of the Hadith about the predetermination of our life span and sustenance in the womb, and was it a source of comfort for them? But something tells me that they remained unaware of it. They buried all the grief deep within them, and trudged through life, behind smiling faces and cynical remarks.

If the grief ever surfaced, I thank God that I was never witness to it, for it would be another painful memory that would have to be held in the box.

Hadith: BUKHARI Volume 1, Book 6, Number 315: Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet said,

“At every womb Allah appoints an angel who says, ‘O Lord! A drop of semen, O Lord! A clot. O Lord! A little lump of flesh.” Then if Allah wishes (to complete) its creation, the angel asks, (O Lord!) Will it be a male or female, a wretched or a blessed, and how much will his provision be? And what will his age be?’ So all that is written while the child is still in the mother’s womb.”

THE ULTIMATE REFUGE

THE SPANISH MOSS……..

I am on the island, I am gliding down the avenue lined by old Oaks with the Spanish moss draping them closely and the tresses hanging low as if to hold on to the memories they have witnessed.

I am counting the miles just like I did when I was with him.

He is sitting up alert but pretending to be relaxed as he stretches his long skinny legs, as we negotiate the bends and turn left into the condos. Today I turn right and I am alone.

In the apartment I am listening to Coldplay with the muted sounds coming from his computer just like the other day.

There is a stillness in the room……….we have just finished dinner, he says “Mom this is the best dinner I have ever eaten” my heart swells with happiness………..such uncomplicated moments; he is another person when he is with me, his guard is down and he is soft, affectionate and considerate.

This island unlike the other one has only one memory and no more. Its him and me and me and him spending our last vacation together, unaware, of the impending parting soon to come.

Every moment is precious, I try to give him his private time, but he invites me to join him and sit with him and watch this comedy show…………and I do.

Why am I back? Why am I walking the steps of memories, why? Because my heart is full and I am tired of being brave, I just want to be where he was with me and I want to remember and savor every moment and cry, I want to cry like Yaqub AS, incessantly and continuously. He lost his son in the desert I lost mine on the highway. I want to cry and cry and cry………….

I find an old Urdu song in his collection and it takes me back to the times when I only dreamed of the future and knew without a doubt that I would be able to pull myself out of the strife and find a better life far away.

Today I know there is no escape from the incessant needling of the fingers of grief, they poke, point and rub, till the wound is raw. The loss is refreshed, with the sadness. As I pull my suitcase out of the trunk of the car, my bones feel old.

There is no lilting young step beside me. I am tired of trudging this life, and a sense of hopelessness drenches every cell of my body. I am tired, I want to go……… and then I realize I am not ready, I am afraid of the FIRE, and I have not done enough to erase my sins and I need His mercy but I also need to work for it.

And so ends another day………….

THE SHIRT: LOSS OF A SON 12: 11-18

Surah Yusuf 12:11-18
قَالُواْ يَـأَبَانَا مَا لَكَ لَا تَأمَنَّا عَلَى يُوسُفَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ  لَنَـصِحُونَ (١١) أَرسِلهُ مَعَنَا غَدًا يَرتَع وَيَلعَب وَإِنَّا لَهُ  لَحَـفِظُونَ (١٢) قَالَ إِنِّى لَيَحزُنُنِىٓ أَن تَذهَبُواْ بِهِ وَأَخَافُ أَن يَألَهُ ٱلذِّئبُ وَأَنتُم عَنهُ غَـفِلُونَ (١٣) قَالُواْ لَن أَلَهُ ٱلذِّئبُ وَنَحنُ عُصبَةٌ إِنَّآ إِذًا لَّخَـسِرُونَ (١٤) فَلَمَّا ذَهَبُواْ بِهِ وَأَجمَعُوٓاْ أَن يَجعَلُوهُ فِى غَيَـبَتِ ٱلجُبِّ وَأَوحَينَآ إِلَيهِ لَتُنَبِّئَنَّهُم بِأَمرِهِم هَـذَا وَهُم لَا يَشعُرُونَ (١٥) وَجَآءُوٓ أَبَاهُم عِشَآءً يَبكُونَ (١٦) قَالُواْ يَـأَبَانَآ إِنَّا ذَهَبنَا نَستَبِقُ وَتَرَنَا يُوسُفَ عِندَ مَتَـعِنَا فَأَلَهُ ٱلذِّئبُ وَمَآ أَنتَ بِمُؤمِنٍ لَّنَا وَلَو نَّا صَـدِقِينَ (١٧) وَجَآءُو عَلَى قَمِيصِهِ بِدَمٍ كَذِبٍ قَالَ بَل سَوَّلَت لَكُم أَنفُسُكُم أَمرًا فَصَبرٌ جَمِيلٌ وَٱللَّهُ ٱلمُستَعَانُ عَلَى مَا تَصِفُونَ (١٨)
Transliteration:
11    Qaloo ya abana ma laka la tamanna AAala yoosufa wainna lahu lanasihoona
12    Arsilhu maAAana ghadan yartaAA wayalAAab wainna lahu lahafithoona
13    Qala innee layahzununee an thathhaboo bihi waakhafu an yakulahu alththibu waantum AAanhu ghafiloona
14    Qaloo lain akalahu alththibu wanahnu AAusbatun inna ithan lakhasiroona
15    Falamma thahaboo bihi waajmaAAoo an yajAAaloohu fee ghayabati aljubbi waawhayna ilayhi latunabiannahum biamrihim hatha wahum la yashAAuroona
16    Wajaoo abahum AAishaan yabkoona
17    Qaloo ya abana inna thahabna nastabiqu watarakna yoosufa AAinda mataAAina faakalahu alththibu wama anta bimuminin lana walaw kunna sadiqeena
18    Wajaoo AAala qameesihi bidamin kathibin qala bal sawwalat lakum anfusukum amran fasabrun jameelun waAllahu almustaAAanu AAala ma tasifoona

Translation (Pickthall)
They said: O our father! Why wilt thou not trust us with Joseph, when lo! we are good friends to him? (11) Send him with us to-morrow that he may enjoy himself and play. And lo! we shall take good care of him. (12) He said: Lo! in truth it saddens me that ye should take him with you, and I fear lest the wolf devour him while ye are heedless of him. (13) They said: If the wolf should devour him when we are (so strong) a band, then surely we should have already perished. (14) Then, when they led him off, and were of one mind that they should place him in the depth of the pit, We inspired in him: Thou wilt tell them of this deed of theirs when they know (thee) not. (15) And they came weeping to their father in the evening. (16) Saying: O our father! We went racing one with another, and left Joseph by our things, and the wolf devoured him, and thou believest not our saying even when we speak the truth. (17) And they came with false blood on his shirt. He said: Nay, but your minds have beguiled you into something. (My course is) comely patience. And Allah it is Whose help is to be sought in that (predicament) which ye describe. (18)

TAFSEEER excerpted from Taleem ul Quran by Dr. Farhat Hashmi (with my take in italics from the retreat on Surah Yusuf with HY)

This is a 4000-year-old story…………a story of which Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had no knowledge. The Meccans. Both the Quraish and the Jews were bent on disproving prophet Muhammad’s Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)Prophet hood. Thus he was asked about Yusuf AS of which he had no knowledge. It is then that Allah Subhanawataala revealed this surah with the complete story of Yusuf in its entirety.

Here is how the story goes………………..

Yaqub (AS) was approached by his sons (the eleven brothers of Yusuf)……………..they started their conversation by making him feel guilty that he does not trust them with Yusuf.

They reminded him that they are a large, strong group, and nothing can overcome them. They asked him to let Yusuf go with them on a picnic and that they would guard him and bring him back safe and sound.  They of course had no intention of bringing him back period. Thus this falls into the earliest history of a premeditated crime.

What does a father do………….when one sibling is pitted against the other and is bent on mischief.

He appealed to them, and said, “ it fills my heart with sadness at the thought of Yusuf going away and I feel anxiety that something might happen to him like a wolf might devour him while you are busy……”

He watched as the brothers in a backhanded fashion accused him of not trusting them with Yusuf. They said that they were going for a picnic and did he not think that they were enough in number and strength to take care of one child and that being their own brother……?

The air was rife with treachery…….a murder had been planned and had been changed to abduction and disappearance.

The Nafs of the boys was riding rampant and its predatory tentacles had overcome their good sense. The whisperings of Shaitaan fanning their envy and jealousy for their younger sib.The mischief crystallized into a deliberate plan to get rid of their younger brother whom they believed to be the apple of their father’s eyes.

A parent can feel when something is amiss in his children. And so did Yaqub AS. He felt that the brothers were up to no good and yet………he submitted to Allah’s Divine Decree by making his fatherly anxiety and premonition yield to the will of God.

He let Yusuf go with them………..

Night had fallen. They came back with his shirt, stained with blood, which they said belonged to Yusuf…………The pain and anguish that he had spoken about when he was hesitant about sending Yusuf with them now filled his heart and overflowed through his eyes. Not a word of anger or complaint to anyone including Allah Subhanawataala escaped his lips………all he said was “ I will bear this sorrow with Sabr Jameel and only ask Allah for help” (a sabr that is beautified with perfection of the act).

The shirt……..covered with blood a reminder that Yusuf was lost, somewhere in the vast unending desert.  His dear sweet, handsome, agreeable, lovable, child Yusuf was lost and there was not a thing he could do except be patient, trust in God and seek His help. Sabr jameel! There was no end point to his anguish, but he had vowed to have Sabr Jameel and only ask Allah for help, but his anguish flowed from his heart to his eyes.

The shirt……….was the only thing left of Yusuf to remind him that he was gone, irrevocably. Somewhere in the back of his mind or from his instincts as a Nabi he knew that his lovely child was not dead……..and yet he was gone, lost in the vast desert and it is said that he cried his heart out till he became blind. A father blinded with grief.

The sorrows of a parent for a child…. dead or lost are unfathomable………it is only the mercy of Allah and trust in Him and Sabr, that keeps one sane and patient in the face of the incessant waves of sorrow that threaten to engulf and drown one into the fathomless sea of grief.

The shirt………….Yusuf’s (AS) shirt is symbolic through out this saga as it continues.

Yaqub (AS) grief and his promise of Sabr Jameel and asking only God for help, brings to us the human example of a grief stricken parent given strength to bear endless sadness.

Most of all it raises the bar for the level of trust in God that we can have and that of Sabr to Sabr Jameel.

Dedicated…………in memory of Nabeel

JULY 09 READINGS

WHAT WAS READ A FEW TIMES:

Surah Al Anaam 6:1-24 for……..
78:08 And (have We not) Created You in Pairs
THE HOUSE, MY SANCTUARY
HAJJ Mabrook to the HAjjiis and Eid Mubarak
Ya Ayohan Naas….. O’ Mankind
PREPARATION FOR UMMRAH
What RasoolAllaah (saws) read or emphasized in prayer
BEHAVIORIAL CLUES OF THE HYPOCRITES: 9:5
THE BLESSING….
ABOUT FASTS AND FASTING………
Islamic Perspective on Sex
WORDS………… WHAT YOU READ A LOT OF TIMES GRADUATION……. THE MOST MISQUOTED AYAHS OF THE QURAN SINCE 911 THE CONCEPT OF SABR (PATIENCE) IN ISLAM THE CONCEPT OF ‘EVENTS AT DEATH’ IN ISLAM Does Islam Allow Muslim Men To Marry Non.Muslim Women Hijab a la Syria IN PREPARATION FOR YOUR FRIEND’S WEDDING About SAJDAH- E- TILAWAT: First Sajdah in the Quran SABR IN ADVERSITY: SURAH HUD 11:9-11

THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR………

Door in Old Damascus

I can feel it knocking on the door, and I am trying to ignore it, the methods used for ignoring are not healthy, and create more anxiety.
Sometimes the knocking becomes insistent and cannot be completely ignored and for a fleeting second I am tempted to open the door and face the consequences and then the wall goes up and deadens the sound of the knocking………….

……………………….There is a gathering at my house. The house is filled with Tariq and Shireen’s friends. Some of them are sitting at the dining table, I am also seated with them, and she is consulting him about college. He in his most “seriously considering” manner is very graciously explaining the pros and cons of the various aspects. I silently acknowledge with surprise his maturity and thoughtful evaluation of the ramifications of the choices in college…………..and just as quickly as it came the memory fades.

Time has fast-forwarded four years, she is done with college and we are all celebrating her graduation dinner. This gathering is very different from her high school graduation dinner where he had given a speech, and one could hear laughter, and sense the air saturated with joy. Today there is a void that no one wants to acknowledge.

I feel the knocking at the door. It is grief…………. insistent on wanting admittance to my heart.

Inna lil lahi wa inna elayhe rajaeown…….