—But dad
He said cutting his father short.
The rubble
His tone was absent of emotion, the illusion of calm, the voice of someone who’d been shocked far too many times. The absence of emotion as if there was none left to have.
The rubble
He said again as if he’d asked a question. Though he didn’t. He hadn’t said much of anything but the question could ask itself. ‘But dad’ was enough of a question, ‘but’ sufficed as inquisition.
The question was in the rubble itself. In the streets filled with the smell of death. In the last screams of his mother. In the cries of his sisters. In the begging of his grandmother when she called out painstakingly ‘Dear God, let it end!’ He wasn’t sure if she meant the violence or life itself. He wasn’t sure if it mattered.
Do you remember —his father continued, your 10th birthday. When I gave you that brand-new soccer ball. And all the kids in the neighborhood came. And you played and played. And for once your mother didn’t yell to you to come inside.
She let you be.
It was like the whole world let you be.
Everything stopped just for you.
I wept that night ya ibnee.
Because I knew it wouldn’t last… the soldiers were coming and we couldn’t stop them.
I wept to God and asked him why. I trembled as if I could feel their footsteps at the back of my neck.
I’m not going to tell you that everything happens for a reason —because I don’t know the reason… And I won’t tell you not to be sad when even the prophet عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ cried over the death of his baby boy.
He looked in his father’s direction, though past him. Unable to stare at another face that could dissipate at any moment. But wanting something desperately to cling to.
Everything will perish except his noble countenance. Death may be easy or hard —and for us, it is no doubt the latter… but death will come and our Lord will remain.
If you lose everything but your faith you have everything. But if you lose nothing except your faith, you have nothing.
That’s all I have left to comfort you with dear son… I don’t have anything else.
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Photo by Mukund Nair on Unsplash
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Please say a prayer for our Muslim brethren in Palestine, China, and anywhere Muslims are suffering. May Allah ease their pain and increase their conviction in Him. Allahuma Ameen.
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