A Death in the Family

Assalamualaikum guys,

   It’s been a while since a posted something with more than ten words in it. Anyways, this entire month has been one hell of an eye opener for me.

   My  dear aunt, Anees, and my dear uncle Saleem, had come to visit from the States. About a week later, his mother was taken to the hospital after a bad fall. She was in serious condition. We all made du’a. She had to go through surgery. She was became fine by the grace of Allah (SWT).

   While she was in the hospital, something else had happened concurrently, my grandfather’s elder brother, the Ameer of our family, the captain of the sailing ship, had died in his mid 80s. He was a man who I’ve never seen frown. Everybody told me that he was a patient man. He had four wives and them and all of there children were there at the time, crying over the death of one of the wisest and oldest man in the family. It had been the first time in my life that I have been to a graveyard. It was probably the most fearful time in my life. There were no memorials, no grave stones, and no lush grass. There were small mounds of dirt. Millions of mounds of dirt.I was scared that I might step on someone’s grave. We had taken the body to the grave. The grave was only six to seven feet low. We placed the body in the grave. I could not help but to picture myself in there. What a feeling for a dead man that would be. His face was only showing. We then put banana leaves and hard cloth sheets one side and stuck bamboo sticks to it to hold them up. We then covered the top of the body with about a foot of gap between his head and the cover so that dirt won’t fall on him. We then started to but the dirt on him. It seemed like he was just sleeping and we were throwing dirt on him. His beard was trimmed and his head was covered with cloth. After he was fully covered, we made du’a, a part from attaining Jannat-ul- Firdaus, I prayed that he would have the window of Jannah on his right side and the cool and soothing breeze of paradise cooling his face. My Grandfather was extremely close to his brother. He was depressed for the last two years since he is getting old(please make du’a for his recovery insha’Allah). He had felt it the most. For the first time his head was on my chest. He was weeping. It had been the first time I’ve seen my Grandpa shed a tear, It was unimaginable for me. He had always been the tough guy for me.  He was a well built man with hefty biceps and a strong chest, but he had become weak because of his depression. Non the less, that image of him stayed in my mind forever. I saw the weakness of the heart one when lose a loved one. He was Superman, and he was holding kryptonite.

   The next day, something that had hurt me more than anything had happened. One of my aunts from my father’s side lived in Sligiri, an Army Base in India. Her husband, Riaz, was plastic surgeon. He had fixed faces for civilians who had faced bombing and war Afghanistan and Kashmir. He had gone to do this great work in Africa. Subhanallah may Allah(SWT) reward him for all the work that he has done. One days after the death of my Grandpa’s brother, Riaz uncle dived in a pool, and never came back up. He was a great swimmer. No one knows what happened. He was taken to the hospital. Three hours later, we got the news that he died. Apparently he died two hours before, but his wife was in such bad shape, that the doctor didn’t know if he should tell her or not. He was 36-37 years old, his daughter is ten, his wife is now a widow, They were happily married with a great life allhumdullilah. His body asked Allah if it could breath, Allah said no, and that was it. 

  This got me to realize the value of life and how thing can break down like buildings being demolished. It as at the snap of a finger. But what got me thinking was when people are alive, others gossip and say bad things about them, but when they die, they realize how good he person was in reality. It’s sad how it takes death to make people realize the goodness of mankind. It’s a great time to say,”wow we suck!”