Just another day...

samedi, avril 19, 2008

The khateeb delivered a very powerful khutbah yesterday. I'm always reduced to tears anyway, so my tears can't be used as proof of this, but there were lots of people around me (who I'm sure if they understood english enough to know the magnitude of what he was saying) who were weeping too.

His message was about our parents. About how they sacrifice their entire lives to give us ours. How they overlook all their basic needs to fulfill our most lofty ones. Of course that hit a heartstring.

All I could think about was my mother.

He narrated many stories. He even wrote a letter that a woman wrote to her son after he had grown up. It's heartbreaking what children put their parents too. And of course they don't understand the pain until they have children of their own, and then sometimes, it's too late.

Basically the moral was to treat your parents how you wanted your children to treat you. If you forget about your parents, your children will forget about you. If you stop visiting your parents, your parents will stop visiting you.

Wallahi, that's one of the reasons I try (or have been so more recently) trying to be better to them. I want my children to be good to me. Of course, the other reason is because they deserve nothing less. You want to talk about love? Look at the bonds between a mother and her child; a father and his child.

I feel so fortunate to be apart of a religion and culture that holds them in such high esteem.

So I've been wanting my nanny to come, kind of for that reason. This past year, or almost year and a half now, since I met him, I guess he's just shed a lot of light on things. I started to outgrow my selfish, rebellious teenager. You know how sometimes you just feel the need to give back...well I don't feel like I can quite give back to my own mother yet, so why not my mother's mother.

I want to do something for her. To serve her. Khidmat. Kind of like some kind of redepmtion or expiation for sin.

I don't want any regrets later. I don't want to be wishing that I had done more, that I had been nicer, that I hadn't upset her.

I hope my father doesn't have any regrets. During the khutbah, the imam told us to ask our parents for forgiveness...to call them...to visit them. I know that khutbah hit home with my dad. My dadi past about eight years ago. He couldn't go to her janaza in Pakistan. I know that still bothers him. So everytime my dada gets ill, my dad sits, tormented. Waiting and feeling helpless.

I thought he would go home and call dad yesterday. The time difference is tricky though.

My dad's BP has also been really high for about the past week. He fainted at work. He's on major meds and the doctor told him to stay home. This morning I was cramping like mad so i popped some advil and went to sleep in the guest room with Nabiha. She told me that dada wasn't well...but I was pretty unconscious.

Then I was just lying there like an hour later and I heard my dad's voice call out, full of pain and tears, pleading my chacha to ask dada for forgiveness on his behalf.

I went downstairs to find my parents together on the phone. At that moment two things struck me: 1. the irony of the situation; my grandfather is unwell because of low BP while my dad is unwell because of high BP and a drop in my dada's will cause an increase in my dad's. Can you imagine being so connected to someone, that everytime you toss and turn, they moan. That everytime you get hurt, they yelp. That anytime your cold, they shiver. That anytime your scared, they cringe. The whole idea of feeling something for someone else...subhanAllah that's beautiful. and 2: how do people go through life without life partners? Have the unconditional support of your wife or husband is soo important during times like this.

Bilal is coming home tomorrow. I want to tell him what's going on so he doesn't make things worse. He never does intentionally but his big heart means he ends up in waiting rooms a lot.

Y'Allah, shower my mercy on my grandfather. Ease his final moments. Let his last breath be one of iman. And let him pass with the words La ilaha illallah on his lips.ameen.

PUBLIÉ PAR MADZ À 10:13 AM  

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