In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
First off, I want to start by saying I am not the best of writers so please forgive my grammatical errors in advance.
Throughout my life I have found it difficult to feel. You might be thinking what do I mean by this? I am talking about the simple art of feeling and expressing your emotions. I tend to brush it under the carpet or distract myself from allowing myself to remember because it hurts too much but I need to hurt for me to move on.
Grief has become an acquaintance of mine; we meet often and most times it is a meeting I hate and tend to try to forget. Most of us live our lives thinking that death is something far away or it is something that will happen to those around us much later in their lives. That is not the case.
My first experience with death was the death of my beloved father when I was 9 years old. Even as I am typing this I am doing the one thing I hate doing and that is feeling but today I will feel and try my best to convey my emotions in order to help at least one person benefit from it. I have never experienced a love like the love my father had for me. Even though I was so young when it happened, the impact he has had on my life is not something you can just forget. I can still hear his laughter in my head to comfort me and I can see his face smiling at me. He is the love of my life. Most females can understand what I mean when I say this, but daughters have a very special relationship with their fathers. It reminds me of the relationship between our Prophet (ﷺ) and his daughter Fatima (ra). When he died as cliche as this sound, truly a part of me died. May allah have mercy on his soul and grant him jannutul firdaws ameen. It was like I could not breathe or feel anymore. I was numb for years, not allowing myself to remember. I was so young that at time I thought what happened to me was unfair. Everyone around me still has their dad but mine was gone. I remember people shout out me saying I had no dad or where was my dad. I get it, we were young. However, I was very vulnerable and unable to understand grief or the concept of death, so these comments hurt and honestly felt like a knife was being stabbed into my chest multiple times. I decided at the time that the best way to move forward is to forget I even had a dad in the first place. I would never mention his name in public but every night I would have a long conversion with my lord asking and begging for him to help me, to forgive him and for us to reunite in Jannah. This went on until I reached the age of sixteen. Besides those people around me at the time of his death no one knew he existed. I would say I live with my mum whenever I was asked, and people would assume that my dad was either away or not around. This made me so upset because my father was always around when he was in this dunya, always. He took me anywhere I desired, we had secret trips in which him and I would sneak out of the house and go on long drives. I was allowing people to make negative assumptions of my father just because I was too afraid to feel the grief. I was so angry at myself. After this I decided to visit his grave. I did not go to his janazah which is my biggest regret. The excuses I make for myself is that I was too young but that was not why, I thought he would come back. I did not think it was real, I thought it was a dream and going to it would have forced me to come to the realization thathe was gone. I recognize now that maybe if I did go at the time I wouldn’t have gone through 10 years of struggle but at the same time this struggle enabled me to grow in ways I never thought I could. It reminds me of this ayat in this quran in which Allah says ‘God does not burden the soul with more than it can bear …’(2: 286). This was my test. Visiting his grave honestly changed my life for the better. After 10 years I grieved, I cried, I felt and the numbness I felt for way too long lifted from my heart and I felt free. All of us will end up in the grave and visiting his grave made me lose any sort of attachment I had to this dunya, I did not even want it anymore. I made the intention to live my life in order to please my lord. My father never belonged to me, he belonged to Allah and I hope in a much better place than I am currently. May allah make it easy for all us.
I mentioned at the beginning that grief has become an acquaintance of mine. After the death of my father, the next death that really impacted my life was the death of my neighbour, may allah have mercy on her soul. As well as that as a result of this pandemic, a lot of loved ones returned to their lord. The two I want to mention is my paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather, may allah have mercy on their souls. My grandmother passed away on the 18th of March and my grandfather on the 10th of April of this year. With each of their deaths I was the first person to receive the news in my household. I broke down. The hardest thing I have done up to date in my life is telling my mother that her father died, it is a moment I will never forget. To witness the person who has raised me by herself with the help of allah, break down in front of me broke me in a way I never thought was possible. My mother is my hero. I went into shock. To be honest, I am still in a state of shock. Even though I had experienced many deaths prior to this, nothing can ever prepare you for it. You can’t breathe, you can’t feel and you can’t think. Every time someone in my family passes away it takes me back to when I was 9 years old, I remember every death and grieve them all again and that is okay. For a long time, I did not think it was. You need to hurt in order to find peace in your heart.
Experiencing death has helped me build a more intimate relationship with my lord. I fill the void that I have in my heart with hope. The hope that I will be reunited with all my loved ones once more. The hope that I am not alone, Allah is watching over me and guiding me. It’s been nearly 13 years since my first encounter with grief and its been a roller coaster ever since. I am far from being healed but what I have learnt in this process is the only way to conquer it, is to feel it. As much as I hate it, feeling and talking to others about what I am feeling has helped me. Grief is personal, do not ever tell anyone how to grieve. It takes a lot of courage for people to speak up. The most you can do as a friend is listen and be there. You cannot force people to open up to you which so many have tried to do in the past but that pushes people away. Whether it take 2 months, 10 years or a lifetime, it is okay. Your journey is your journey, do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Hard times will come, and you will have bad days and again that is okay. I have had to unlearn the toxic traits I had learnt. A lot of people have told me I am cold and that hurts me because people don’t understand opening up is something I find difficult doing because at a young age I put a band aid on a wound that didn’t heal on the inside and writing this is my way of healing. Let me you tell you this, you never know what anyone is going through so please be aware of the words you use, one word can trigger someone as it has happened to me in the past. My intention of writing this was enabling myself to feel and I feel a lot lighter than I did at the beginning. Our lord is the most merciful and remember to never to despair. I am going to end this with this ayat ‘Indeed with hardship comes ease’ (15:85). May allah continue to guide us on this journey of life ameen.
Just remember that you are never alone. Allah is always watching over you.
