"Two years later, when Muhammad was eight, the man he now called Father, his grandfather also died. Mina was always saying that God loved Muhammad more than anyone else, but I didn't understand how that could be the case, why did Allah take everyone Muhammad loved away from him? "To teach him to depend on Allah only,' Mina explained. "But why?" I asked. "Because it is the truth, behta. Not a truth most can handle but truth all the same. God is the only One we can depend on, truly."" - American Dervish.
This morning, as I was reading Gail Tsukiyama's
"Dreaming Water" about a girl who suffered from
Werner's Syndrome, a disease that makes a person age at twice the rate of a healthy individual - I suddenly became worried about Adam. No, not worried if he might have that. He has passed the age to not be diagnosed with
Werner. Meaning you start showing signs of the disease when you are in your twenties, and my Adam is well past that. I was worried about his ever increasing late nights, studying, preparing presentation, practising on his questions, and I was struck by the thought of what if all these late nights, sleeping at 2 or 3, sometimes even 4 in the morning would one day lead him to having
aneurysm, an excessive localized enlargement of an artery caused by a weakening of the artery wall. When ruptured, it can result in hemorrhage and more than often can be fatal. I have a friend whose husband who was on a business trip and were to leave for home the next morning, was asked by his colleague to have coffee at the hotel's coffeehouse. Despite already being ready for bed and had actually told his wife goodnight and reminding her to not forget to pick him up from the airport, he changed and went down anyway. When he entered the coffeehouse to join his friend, he bend down to tie his shoe lace, and slumped forward. No warning, no nothing, and there he was, gone. In this book
"Dreaming Water", the girl's father died of the same condition. He came home, kissed his wife, went upstairs to change for dinner, and never came down. His wife found him half slumped on the bed, almost in a kneeling position, warmth already waning from his life, dead to the world, from the blood vessel burst in his head, with no meaningful last words left for his wife, for who could have guessed?
I know death is in the hands of God. Only He would know when our time is up. And a lot of times, even when we know that fact, we tell ourselves that we should stay healthy, keep a healthy lifestyle, take care of our mental and physical condition and eat well. When someone dies, especially when he dies young, we tell ourselves, "if only he had exercised" or "if only he had eaten well" or "if only he had gone for regular medical check-ups" and so on and so forth. What makes us think that if he had eaten moderately or if he had exercised all the time, and if he is on the dot for all his regular check-ups, he will not die anyway when comes the time? Point is, no one knows when death is near. People said there are signs, but do we see them? Perhaps, but only after that person is gone. Even then, I have heard of many who said that there were no signs or changes that they noticed before their loved ones passed on. And what about the person himself? Could he have noticed the changes in him, those signs of death coming your way 40 days before the actual day? Because I have never heard or read of anyone saying that they have the signs and they know they will die in just over a month's time. And after they are gone, unfortunately they cannot come back and tell us if they had seen those signs of death about to embrace them in the 40 days preceding but unable to say anything because that is just how is with one so close to death.
Anyhow coming back to me being worried about Adam, despite telling myself that even if he takes care of himself, and God wills for him to die at a certain time of a certain condition, he will anyway and there is nothing anyone can do to go against what Allah has willed. "But what if Adam leaves me, I will be alone," I thought to myself, and further tormenting myself with "And what if his time comes when we are just a few years in our marriage? How can he go when we have not even spent a lifetime with each other?" I know, by now you would think I am going bonkers. I am too and I was like "stop it" and I know if I tell this to Adam, he would be saying the same thing as well, "stop it." After all, that is how life is, we are going to die and leave people we love behind, or people we love will die and leave us alone.
Except, the fact is, we are actually not alone, if we look past things, if we look past our ego or nafs. If we learn to only love Allah or at best, love Him the most, beyond everything and everyone else in this world. It is His love that we should seek and strive for. The rest are all additional earthly matters, that even without, we can live with if we only have Allah's love. That brings me back to the passage above which I quoted from the book, American Dervish. About the Prophet (pbuh) having everyone that he loves taken away by God. Why is that Allah did that to him? If Allah loved him, why would Allah put him in such a painful and sorrowful situation? And yes as Mina said, so that the Prophet will realise that only Allah lasts, only the love for Him and His love would last, and that at the end of everything, the ultimate fact of our life is that we can depend on no one but Him. People we love and who love us will leave us, whether by death or other circumstances in life. But Allah... He never leaves us, will never leave us. That it is His love that we should strive for, that we should seek for to the end of times. And most times, we forget that. We are worried of losing the people we love, but we forget that we should be worrying about losing His love for us. We take for granted His presence. We hardly give a thought to "what if Allah leaves me, today, tomorrow, whenever?"
Then we will truly be alone. I remember my brother discussing that passage quoted above, and asking me what I understand of it. I told him exactly as I had understood at that time, that we can depend on no one else but Him. He told me there is more to it, said we will talk about it when he gets home to our parent's which was on that previous weekend I made the flourless brownies, but we didn't get the chance to talk about it further. Too many other wordly matters that took centre stage in our chat that night at our parent's. I don't want to forget that we have not spoken about it, I want to be able to hear his take on it, a broader view on what it is and learn from it, because he knows so much, his reading on all things related to the Beloved is vast. So, I shall not let him off scot-free the next time he comes back for a visit. I want to know more so that I will learn to put aside my nafs, the wants and the needs for all worldly matters and strive for Godly matters. Then again, I am only human, a sinner who stumbles all the time, who still want to love and be loved by Adam, my boys, my parents, my siblings, who feel that she can never live without this love and this people. But that does not mean I cannot try right? I may not even be fifty percent successful, I should not even dream of coming close to being like Rabia al Adawiyya, who lived only for the love of Allah, but then again, that does not mean I do not want to at least strive to love Him the most, to put Him above everything and everyone else in this world, to miss Him and to yearn for Him for as long as I live.
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pic via sinners almanac
by taufiq abdul khalid |
It is not too late to try right? After all, everything can be if I keep on asking, and of course if and when He wills it... insyaAllah.
