.بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

The weight of it. Heavy, and crushing. Something could give way again, and it could be unbearable. Like, how? And, why?

It’s the turning of her beads in her hands. Rotations, and life must go on. She said she could have died. Some people faint, and some collapse. You might begin to panic. Sob. The weight of it all.

When my good friend had lost someone so completely beloved to her, the woman with the smile. The one who had walked lightly upon this temporary Earth. The weight and depth of our grief:

We do not know it, until we must. The gaping ache of love’s place, looking for its love. It’s denial. It’s questions. It’s self-distraction. It’s falling again, all of a sudden, and seemingly out of nowhere. When the feeling comes crashing down again.

A Muslim sister had sat with my friend until the early hours. Another Muslim sister, I think she had said, my friend’s friend, and a doctor: had invited her into her home. They prayed ‘Isha together. Tahajjud. And Fajr. Because although one of the women she dearly, dearly loves is no longer in her more temporary home, warming it up:

She finds that she is not alone; Allah Mercifully brings you comfort. The black prayer beads, the Tasbeeh, being rolled in her hands. The sister who had invited her into her home; they’d prayed together, the sister had ordered two large pizzas to eat. She’d read Qur’an to my friend until my friend had fallen asleep.

Grief. It’s love that, present tense, feels confused. It does not know what to do, except… continue. Love is not lost. It’s there. That’s why you cry. ‘I miss you’, meaning: I feel amiss without you.

Distance can be a road, painful, and it isn’t forever. Distance, and hence, grief. Some things are meant to be, like my friend ت, and her dearly beloved Nanee.

It’s like ت’s friend, who has also lost her grandmother in this temporary Dunya: the way her grandma’s cardigan is draped over her own chair, in her room. It’s the scent of someone, and the unique everythings of their voice; all the ‘little’ things.

And: it’s memory. These beloved things are not lost. ‘Little’ things might remind.

For a while, in this world. And then, in our forever homes: in Jannah,

“You will be with those whom you love.” (Bukhāri).