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 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………….

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…….

NO FEAR AND N0 GRIEF…………Surah Baqarah

The Names of Allah:courtesy www.flickr.com

Surah Baqarah2.038
قُلنَا ٱهبِطُواْ مِنہَا جَمِيعًا فَإِمَّا يَأتِيَنَّكُم مِّنِّى هُدًى فَمَن تَبِعَ هُدَاىَ فَلَا خَوفٌ عَلَيہِم وَلَا هُم يَحزَنُونَ (٣٨)
In Surah Baqarah ayah 38 Allah Subhanawataala says:
002.038 YUSUFALI: We said: “Get ye down all from here; and if, as is sure, there comes to you Guidance from me, whosoever follows My guidance, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

On a personal note:

Let me share with you my journey with grief and fear.
After Tariq, and his friends died, I was in severe unremitting continuous pain and grief. I took Prophet Muhammad sallalaho alaye wasalaams advice and used every halal available means to allay my grief.
The intensity of the pain was blinding and unremitting despite all the secular and medical methods.

It was in one of these moments of blinding pain that I sought the guidance of Allah Subhanawataala’s words and tapped into His promise of no fear and no grief.
I am a slow learner so after quite a while, I realized the connection, that as long as I was in the presence of my Lord, I had no fear and no grief.

Thus ignoring His Subhanawataala’s guidance and going back to the ways of dunya, the rat race and the senseless acquisition of degrees, materialistic assets and fame became moot.

Allah Subhanawataala says………….. and it is the secret of inner peace:
Verily it is in the Dhikr of Allah that hearts do find rest.

There are so many people who spend their life in search of cure for their grief in the secular zone. The modern Muslims also, like me first search all the secular sources and yet are blind to the single ayah at the front end of the Quran, which is laden with Allah’s promise.

He or she who follows Allah Subhanawataala’s guidance shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.

When you reach out and take one step towards Him Subhanawataala He takes ten……..so goes the hadith from our beloved Prophet Muhammad peace be upon Him.

I sincerely hope and pray that you do not wait for a catastrophe to happen and the pain of grief to  smother you before you actually seek His guidance.

THE THIRD ROOM………..

I am in the first room with a lot of people they are all laughing and happy. It is a joyous occasion and I too am not sad…………..and yet I long to be in the second room.
The second room is the “lonely room” there is no one there except the rocks of my memories, the dark waters of “what ifs”, the Alligators of guilt and the sharks of Regret.
Why do I want to be in the lonely room when I can be in the first room with such a happy group of people, who are celebrating life?

The answer lies in what is at the other end of the lonely room………. I have to be brave to step into the murky waters of sadness, wade in the unknown depths of depression, avoid the Alligators of guilt and swim faster than the Sharks that can swallow me and then in their belly my skin will peel like Younus (AS) layer by layer as I am faced with regret………of actions not done.

I quietly leave the first room and wade into the lonely room, gently caressing the rocks of memories, worn down with the waves of time and sadness. I know that I cannot linger because I don’t want to drown in the murky waters, nor be swallowed by guilt or made immobile with fear of the sharks of regret………..

Thus from my past experience I begin my journey deeper and deeper into the lonely room, the words of Younus AS giving me company and tears, but never swerving from my initial purpose to reach the other side.

It had been on one desperate day that I had done the same and had swum the dark dank waters with all my strength, seeking……. seeking what? I did not know.

Guided by His (Subhanawataala’s) words coming from the lips of Younus (AS) in the belly of the whale, and I had found shore.

Climbing on to the sanctuary, small, the size of a musallah, which could barely hold my body in prostration, but lighted and protected from all predators and from the dark waters around me.

I remember I had fallen in prostration, with relief and a lightness and continued my salaat, my prayer, every supplication and surah that I knew by heart, again and again, tears streaming down my cheeks, entreating him to relieve my pain……….
And I remember distinctly a chink opening, and light streaming into the lonely room from the third room…………

I never knew that in this dark and lonely place there was an opening to the third room, I could smell fragrance, I could feel the fresh air, the sort of feeling when one comes out of cave into a verdant forest……….

Someone yells my name from the first room, I am needed, I have to fulfill my duties, and I must go back. I regretfully swim back and the door to the third room closes behind me.

Though I fear being lost in the dark waters of sadness and depression, I often long for the lonely room despite all its predators,………in the hope that I can cross it and perhaps this time enter The Third Room.

" Which of our favors will you deny" Surah Rahman

THE WALL………….

July………….it is for me what December is for brother Anis.
It will be four years this July 13 when the cops came to our house to tell me that Tariq was “deceased”.
As I enter the last days of June, I can hear the anger of the ocean of grief rising with every passing moment. The tumultuous waters I cannot see, nor feel as there is a wall between me and them.

A wall created by the Dhikr and remembrance of Allah. I do not know when it went up, but when ever I hear the rising anger of the wild ocean of grief, I feel the wall separating me, protecting me from the raging waters, from being lost in them forever………my wall……. made to protect me from drowning in the ocean of grief…….made by Him Subhanawataala,

All I can think as I hear the angry lap of the waves of grief on the other side of the wall and feel their aggressive anger is:

“Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?”   055.028

He protects me from the tidal wave gaining strength on the other side of the wall……….it is July again and as the waves of the sea of grief gain strength and crash against the wall …….it stands sentinel, strong and witness to all the grief as it protects me from its thunder.

I have to remind myself to thank Him Subhanawataala for protecting me and say:
002.156 YUSUFALI: Who say, when afflicted with calamity: “To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return”

PARTING………….

Parting is such sweet sorrow…………more sorrow less sweet, and yet the mother if this little infant let him go with a woman named Haleema to the outskirts of the city to give him the fresh air and food She sent him away from the pollution and diseases of the city and allowed him to be nurtured in the clean desert air. This was the Arab tradition in those days.

Bibi Haleema had been looking for a child to foster, she was poor and all she got was this orphan child, she had a lean goat that did not always give milk, and when she did, it was meager in amount.

When Bibi Haleema brought this orphan home, the barakah in her home and fields multiplied. He was a blessing then, remains a blessing now for those who bring his ways into our homes and will remain a blessing and a Mercy for Mankind till this world ends.

Do we actually know this person?

Grave of Bibi Haleema outside medina

Photo courtesy:http://sweetshenu.multiply.com/photos/album/468/Not_even_0.1_Muslims_had_the_opportunity_to_see_this_View#12

WHITE FEAR……..AND MOTHERS AND THEIR CHILDREN

White fear permeating GAZA civilians

I am at a medical lecture. A surgeon has just returned from the border of GAZA, where he has been operating on civilians from GAZA.

He puts up a picture of the hospital people just sitting and waiting in the courtyard.  What is this I think, there is a war going on and people of the hospital are just lolling around? But before my judgmental self could go into high gear he explains:

“Patients are only brought when ceasefire occurs and it occurs only one to three hours every twenty-four hours”

I translate that into my mind……. cease fire, which means that not even patients are allowed to leave GAZA, unless in this uneven match the Israelis give permission to pause in the active process of a unilateral killing field…I think of the American TV commentator explaining why GAZA is being attacked: because Hamas has posted children and women on top of army installations……….and the sad commentary on the intellect of us Americans is that we may actually believe that.

I don’t want to second guess Allah Subhanawataala’s wisdom in this carnage……….but perhaps the hearts of his people have become so………HARD that he wants to show them some scenes of devastation in the hope that those hearts would soften with compassion………..perhaps.

A heart of stone

Another picture goes up, the surgeon is operating on some ones leg, all you can see is the stump of one leg which was amputated civil war style with a saw, and the other has a burn which has eaten up all except the bone. He continues:

“This is a phosphorus burn, (WHITE FEAR) he says and pauses……….as if recalling the horrific memory, the feeling of helplessness. A medical situation when even a well-equipped doctor cannot help a phosphorus burn because it continues to burn the flesh till nothing is left except the bone…………..”

I too pause and recall that use of white Phosphorus on civilians is a war crime……………visions of the Nuremberg trial appear, where the victims of those times are now the perpetrators of the present crime…

The surgeon continues…” Almost all the patients were women and children; there were a few elderly men and almost no young men”

I think of Tariq………..what happened to the young men……….I cannot even bear to think of it, this is no longer a medical lecture on the medical relief activities in the war on GAZA, but an hour of personal anguish………

I think of the mothers watching their young sons, being burnt to the bone, I hear their wails, their prayers to God…..asking Him to destroy the future generations of the Israelis and all those who help them, I see them pouring out their anguish to Him Subhanawataala cell by cell, their own hearts melting with pain like the flesh of their children melt with the white phosphorus………….

Can some one help…….they cry out and there is no answer, the powerful wait till the population of Gaza is burnt to the ground……………so that the Israelis can have their open-air cafes without fear of being bombed.

I am frozen in time, space and grief, I see the slide show changing, wound after wound being shown, the patients are all children they are alive and in pain……….I cannot hear him any longer.

He shows a picture of a seven-year-old girl with a huge gash sewed up in her thigh, from which he has removed a broken part of a rocket from an American gunship (given to Israel in its annual three billion dollar package)

a sterile image of the perpetrators

I am devastated as I see my tax money…being used to lodge pieces of rockets in the bodies of children condemning them to a life of legless ness.

and the end result is:

Burning alive

Will Allah Subhanawataala ever forgive me for this indirect participation, astighfirullah astighfirullah astighfirullah! I ask for forgiveness, He knows that I had no power over where my money is being sent.

Someone from the audience asks “why are the Jews of Israel maiming the children of GAZA?” what do they get out of it?”

I am surprised at the analytical American mind, which asked this question…….the answer however is an eye opener:

“ With the maiming of the young population of GAZA the Jews of Israel want to drain all the resources of the people there and make them completely dependant, exhausted and useless.” (Thus making slavery easier for the conquerors……….)

All I can say at that point is that on the Day of Judgment……….Allah Subhanawataala will not only question the Israeli and American Jews for methodically maiming the children of GAZA, but each person alive at this time in history will be asked” what did you do?”………………Including me.

What are we doing besides getting angry and using bad words for the perpetrators of this crime?
Is this softening our hearts with compassion?
Are we less attached now to things than the plight of people?
Has this impacted on the way we live, eat, drink and waste? Has this brought us closer to the fear and love of God?

I ask myself, how can help? How can I change myself towards taqwa? Do I know what Allah Subhanawataala says and enjoins for me in circumstances such as these?

Allah Subhanawataala has sent Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a mercy for mankind, and in his life and actions we can find inspiration, healing and solutions.

I realize that history repeats itself………….. Do I know the history of Islam? and do I know what did Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) do when faced with such a disaster…………I don’t know…… because there is a large void in my knowledge………………Do you know?

A Dua from Sheikh Alafasy

WHY ARE HOLIDAYS TOUGH?

It is Thanksgiving and the turkey is ready. We are all home and we have added another family member to- be to our little family. Shireen’s fiancée is now adapting to us and we to him.

As the carving time comes, there is no banter to be had between brother and sister and no friendly teasing while the wishing bone is tugged on by the sibs. The photograph of thanksgiving is taken to remember another year together and the empty spot next to Shireen is poignantly evident.

So why are the holidays tough, don’t we remember Tariq every day? Or is it just on the holidays?

Everyday his memory is a personal remembrance of what he and I shared a connection that I personally had with him that I miss.

At the holidays whether it be Thanksgiving or Shireen’s white coat ceremony it seems the loss becomes compounded and public. It almost reflects off of the people present and the void next to them is pronounced, the missing piece in our life is even more apparent.

We cannot replace Tariq nor Shireen, whether they are absent from life or from circumstance. We miss them; they each have their own particular characteristics that they bring to the holidays that make the time together fun, and at times amusing, but always memorable.

So why are the holidays tough? We still have Shireen and she still has us and now she also has her fiancée. It is difficult to assess. Why when we get together as a family on a happy or sad occasion that we miss the person who is absent.

Eid is here, I remember putting Tariq on the airport shuttle on his way back to college after his last Eid with us. It was cold and he was reluctant to go as I was to let him. There was a feeling of finality; I mistook it to be his return to college and a separation of parent and child as we move on and away into different life spheres.

So why do we miss him and my mother so much at the holidays?

My mother……..I celebrated so many Eids with her, actually I can think of very few when she was not with me either as a child or a grown up married women. I remember the gusto and affectionate detail with which she would buy her cards for each holiday for each child and grandchild and secretly one for me………..I miss the words she chose so carefully for each card such that they seemed to be written by her and coming from her heart and so why do I miss her on the holiday.

The preparations for Eid were always a joint project, first the plans for the day, then shopping for gifts both for her grand kids and her sons and their spouses, then the painstaking process of wrapping them and taking them to the post office. As long as she drove, she did all that seamlessly, it is only when she could no longer drive did I realize the hours she put into the care of choosing a gift and card and gift for each child and grandchild and their respective spouses, preparing them for mail and then sending them off in a timely manner.

With Eid came the discussion for the Eid menu with her and the décor, I was good at the later and she would make her famous “saviyou ka zarda’ unmatched to this day.

I would make sure the table was set for a formal brunch for the family to be partaken after prayers. She would admire and appreciate my artistry and sometimes even laugh affectionately at my inordinate attention to ambience.

No matter what happened we had our formal brunch with the immediate family followed by the children wishing a formal Eid Mubarak to her with salaam, their hands itching for the Eidee that they knew was on its way from her to them.

As they got older they became more sheepish at continuing to accept cash for Eidee from her knowing that she was on a restrictive income.

She and I and the kids would then go out for putt putt or to visit others or do something the children wanted………we did this year after year, and so this became the fabric of our lives.

………And this is the reason holidays are tough, because I can see the rents and holes in the fabric of our lives and I feel the cold air of loneliness coming through these holes.

As I listen to Surah Al Anfal I realize that the kith and kin of the tribes of Arabia were realigned with the Battle of Badr. Friendships of faith sprung up side by side where blood relatives became blood thirsty, all in one defining moment. This gave me pause and has allowed me to reflect on why I miss my kin on the holidays, and perhaps do some redefining and realigning.

This year there was no one at home to celebrate Eid ul Adha with me. Each family member had a reason for their absence. I decided that this was the time to regenerate my family and reach out to my sisters in Islam and make them a part of my life, share what I could, with them, meager and simple as it may be, with genuine hospitality and love giving what is most precious to me ………….Time!

They came and along with them came a sister for whom this was her first Eid. She has been a Muslim for only a year, and as the afternoon unraveled we sat over glasses of wassail and tea and bowls of soup and listened to her journey to Islam. She traveled to the path of Deen via the west coast, Afghanistan, and Iraq and then finally reaching the south, she found the answer to her search for truth.

Her saga for the search for the genuine Deen was riveting: how her heart was always guiding her toward Allah Subhanawataala. How at every curve that her life took, she was placed on the path facing Islam and as she put it beautifully while we sat in pin drop silence listening to her life story “Jesus took me by the hand and placed me before Allah as the one God”

And thus I had a family this Eid at home, not one that you would think of in terms of tradition, but a family nevertheless, each member of which was kind, graceful and caring in their own unique manner in the sharing of their love. Thus this Eid……… though the holes still remain in the fabric of my life but the air that comes through those holes this holiday is fragrant with the perfume of friendship and love fi sabillallah. (For the sake of Allah).

Holidays are tough………. but there are friends of Deen waiting out there to send the fragrance of friendship to us fi sabillallah, if we show an inclination to invite them in as our family and accept the fabric of our lives as is, with holes and all……….

Are Holidays tough for you? What do you do to help yourself?

carnation photo: courtesy of www. flickr.com :eidcards