Dearest Z1.
Dearest Zeynah,
Sometimes I find myself in tears at the thought of the pain your mother is feeling. I cry and I mourn having to let go of you here and I cry at the pain of the possibility of what this might feel like. And then I cry more tears because I can’t believe the weight of this grief, and I cry for the pain I try to imagine, but have not tasted for myself, because even the smallest thought of it brings me to my knees.
Ya Allah, with every ounce of my being I pray for the light of your love and mercy to enter Maryam’s heart.
To fill her father’s heart with the everlasting knowing and awareness of her transcendence, and her comfort and safety in the palm of the Most Loving.
I see your mother, and I feel her fierceness, energy, dedication and commitment to make all of your dreams come true. And to building a beautiful community for you, one that grieves, and cries in the late hours of the night for the beautiful lessons your life and death have taught us.
I see your father, and I feel his courage, devotion and steadfastness to make sure you are protected and comforted forever. I watched this man ever so delicately lay the ground for you in your departure of this world. I watched in disbelief at the strength and courage of the men of your family and community who one by one laid the earth to protect you for your final rest.
“God is with the broken hearted… the breaking of the heart is what opens it up to the light of Allah.
The dunya is designed to break your heart. To crush it. “
What is there left to do but to submit and lay ourselves on your doorstop.
Mercy, you are the nourishment my heart needs when I am starved of hope. I long for your sustenance.
Oh Allah, bring mercy to my lips, so that I may taste the beauty of this promise.
The other day I was reading about Maryam (AS) or ‘Mary’, mother of Isa (Jesus, AS). I was reading about Maryam, because I was thinking of a Maryam. A mother whose Tawakuul (faith) was so beyond my comprehension, who embodies the trust, the ultimate test of love and faith in her Lord, the one who made us possible, and to whom we shall all return to.
What type of trust does it take to listen to a nurse recount, with such joy, never without also sorrow, that the ‘heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and eyes…” have found a match. Watching your eyes filled with tears, rejoice at the joy of knowing she will be able to continue to give the gift of life, to others, even as we sit amidst her, knowing her hour has arrived Subhanallah.
“If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wife unto the body life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one” (Gibran, on death).
And so, Hannah, mother of Maryam, was gifted a baby despite not being able to children, she vowed to Allah that if she was given a baby, it would be devoted to Allah, and so Allah gifted her a child and Hannah gave Maryam to serve God. Hannah made a simple du’a from the pure intention of a mother’s heart, and Allah answered it so completely that Maryam (as) is remembered to this day for her excellence, strength and purity. There is nothing more powerful that the sincere prayer of a mother. Maryam (Mary) actually means, the one who serves. And also, one who is equal to two men. Maryam (as) had amazing strength in serving Allah and getting through intense tests. Allah made Maryam (as) a joy to be around, well liked amongst people, and put her in the care of righteous people.
As Maryam (as) began to experience an unimaginably difficult test, she was pregnant in isolation, while knowing people were slandering her and speculating about her. She embarked on a lonely journey to Bethlehem to give birth to Isa (Jesus). During this trial, her pain was so great that she wished had died instead of experiencing it. I want us to understand that Maryam (as) was one of the best people who ever lived. She was chosen ‘above the women of the worlds’, she was as perfect as a human being can be, yet even she felt so much desperation and anguish in her test that she wished to be completely forgotten. And yet Allah gave her the opposite. Maryam is mentioned alone 31 times in the Quran, she is the only women mentioned by name, and Allah mentions her when he isn’t telling her story, “Isa, son of Maryam”, Jesus, son of Mary”. It is through her pain and sacrifice that Prophet Isa was born. And so we may ask, how many people were guided to God’s light through her test? How any people have been inspired, comforted or strengthened through her story?
We don’t know why Allah has sent us a particular test, we may ever know why Allah gave this test to Zeynah’s family, but we are witnessing in front of us a divine and beautiful patience and gratitude for the beautiful life she lived here, and the life she gave to so many others.
The Prophet Muhammed (saw) said, ’The greatest reward comes with the greatest trial”. And so we know deeply, that “When Allah loves a people He tests them”.
Oh Allah, we pray that our tests are a means for us to please You and draw closer to You, and we pray that You give us even a fraction of the Tawakkul and strength of Maryam (as), ameen.
We pray to remain illuminated in Your beautiful light, and that the bitterness of loss, and the unfathomable pain it brings forth, is quelled by your mercy and the sweetness of faith. We pray that in the place of sadness, our faith and trust will strengthen us and put peace in our hearts and strengthen our resolve in the truth that Allah knows best, that he will never burden a soul beyond what it can bear.
And this divine love is such that “He pushes us to the edge of the cliff when He wants us to learn how to fly” (Helwa, 2020).
And Maryam, you must be so loved, the beloved of Allah, to be tested with a trial so seemingly impossible that only the most righteous amongst us could bear its weight, and yet, you have smiled, you have laughed, and you have made us whole again, even in your most impossible moment, you have shone your light for us to see that in fact, “what you are weeping for, has been your delight”.
And we prayed for mercy, and we prayed for a miracle, and we prayed for the light… and what is left, but to accept that, indeed, as you said, Maryam, Mother of Zeynah, as we held hands and I looked at the beautiful baby girl you made, she was ‘too good for this world’. And we knew that she has returned to her creator, the Most Loving, The Most Merciful, The Most Knowing.
May Allah grant you the highest level of Jannah Maryam, to rejoin with your beautiful baby girl in the freedom of God, and I pray as you journey onwards, you always know, that Love has no finality, it knows no bounds, and each beautiful sight you witness here, she will witness with you, and rejoice knowing that she is free of any pain, worry or doubt.
In fact, we know that her life hasn’t ended it has just begun. The end of this world is the beginning of the next. It is reborn into the akhirah away from the pains and suffering of dunya (worldly life). It is in the impossibility of this reality that we see that there are things we were never meant to make sense of, there is no understanding, there is only surrender, deep submission, and acceptance for what which we may never make sense of, but that which we feel deeply.
Everywhere I turn I see how loved you are by your community, by people you meet in passing, and by people who remember you for your generosity and openness. When we would finally meet, you told me, “come see my Angel”. And, I was so afraid to go to the hospital, I thought, why me? Of all the people who should be there, not me. But I knew that our meeting could have only been in that moment, destined, because I needed it more than you know. And I came for you, and instead I have been the one gifted, the experience and awareness of tawakuul and what it feels like to be in the company of someone whose Iman is so elevated that their energy sweeps you in like leaves in the wind, and gently soothes you, like a cool breeze, at once.
And what for us then, where do we go from here? Since becoming a mother, I have struggled every single day with the fear of loss, the losses I experienced throughout my life have haunted me but I have fought every single day to embody the truth that while we are a part of their stories, we do not write them. As Gibran once said, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you”.
I pray that each tear you shed awakens your spirit to liberation of life. Allah swt says, “the life of this world is only the enjoyment of deception” (Quran, 3:185). Temporary, but also the most incredibly beautiful illusion, so beautiful indeed that it brings us to tears, and imagining the afterlife brings us to our knees.
Without measuring your life by a linear notion of time, embrace the depths of your existence and the details of your vision, for what which you seek awaits your embrace. You may live 100 years devoid of any life, and you may life 9 years in a depth unknown to time.
Rest in beautiful peace Zeynah. Your life and death have left us changed forever.
And one promise I can offer you Maryam is that the “deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy it can contain”. And I know that you know now that joy and sorrow exist together, everlasting, they are inseparable, and one is no greater than the other.
And Zeynah, thank you for showing up here for your mother to witness, in the song of the morning bird, in the dew of the new grass and in the sparkles of light around us. We have work to do here, and we pray that we make you proud with the life we have been gifted here, in your memory, always.
Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return (Quran 2:156)