Her face buried deep in piles of A Level textbooks, Sadaf’s mind was wandering off in worried thoughts about her mother. Her mother had flown to England the night before with her father and brothers to get a check-up after she had been diagnosed with a relapse of cancer, while Sadaf was left behind in Islamabad to appear for her final A Level examinations. She could not fully concentrate on the subject matter as she was too concerned about what was going to happen to her mother. Was she going to make it? Was everything going to be okay? Why was Allah testing them like this? Why was she being put through this misery? All these questions encircled her mind viciously, not letting her study for her upcoming exams.
Last week when her mother complained of sudden pain in her abdomen, the family rushed her to the hospital. To their dismay, the laboratory results revealed that the cancer that everyone assumed her mother had gotten rid of some years back had relapsed, and this time it had reached a critical stage. Due to the urgency of the situation, her whole family flew to England to get opinions of the world’s best oncologists as to what would be the best procedure to cure this relapse. Sadaf was left behind as her mother strictly believed that these examinations were very important, and Sadaf could join her family after when her exams ended.
Trying to keep a sane attitude towards life, Sadaf asked her friends to come over so she could cover her course quickly and relax in their company. She desperately tried to keep her mind off her mother, in vain. Her friends made her laugh and they gossiped for hours, yet, every time the phone rang, Sadaf’s heart skipped a beat. The morning after, her father called her with some bad news. Her mother had been admitted in a local hospital in London due to her critical condition. He told her that she needed to pack her bags and fly there the same evening. Sadaf was bewildered. She really had no idea how to react to any of this.
Later that evening, she was sitting on the plane to London. Tears in her eyes, she prayed silently in her heart. “Dear Allah, please take my mother out of this pain, she is the best person in this world and she deserves all the happiness. Please don’t let her suffer. Please rid my family of this misery.”
In a couple of hours, she landed. Her uncles and brothers had come to receive her. Their faces were drained out. She asked them what were the updates but all they did was mumble that they should all just pray. When she reached the hospital, she got another shock. The lady in bed did not look any more like her jolly, beautiful, full of life mother. She looked like a pale and lifeless creature who had had all the happiness sucked out of her. Sadaf did not know how to react. She had never seen her mother in such a state and she had never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would one day stand watching her helplessly. She ran to hug her and cried uncontrollably.
The following few days were no less than a bad roller coaster ride, the kind you’d like to forget as soon as you get off it. Sadaf stayed day and night at the hospital, looking after her ailing mother. There were days when she showed signs of progress but those were soon destroyed by a new medicine reaction or a new symptom of the worsening cancer. Sadaf kept in contact with her friends. They gave her hope at every step and promised her that nothing would go wrong. Her father, uncles and brothers, all breathed pessimism. Her grandmother looked at her daughter with gloomy and sad eyes. She wanted to fast forward this time and take her mother back home all healthy. The only thing she was glad about was that her mother was surrounded with almost all of her family taking care of her day and night.
Soon after, a little less than a fortnight in London, when she was at her uncle’s house to change and freshen up, her father called her from the hospital to rush there as soon as possible. She failed to understand what the urgency was. She dressed her youngest brother and quickly got to the hospital. When she reached, she found her whole family gathered in the room. She looked from one face to the other; all of them had the same expression. That of hopelessness and pity. It infuriated her. Why were they behaving like this? She walked up to her mother and found out that she was now having severe trouble in her breathing because of which she could not speak much either. Instead because of all the difficulty, her mother slept almost all day long. She did not respond much to anything anyone said. Sadaf hugged her. She had not lost faith. It would all be okay. And why wouldn’t it be. She saw no reason for Allah to punish them in any manner; especially not her mother who had been a very pious and generous woman all her life.
Her grandmother wept non-stop, her father stayed speechless, her youngest brother went off to play with cousins, the elder one sat by her mother’s feet and her uncles all sat there with that grave look on their face. Sadaf wanted to scream and tell everyone to fix themselves and let go of this attitude. Her mother would fight this battle victoriously. Sadaf was sure of it.
Her mother was not eating or drinking. Her throat has swollen. The nurses ensured that she got her nutrients via drips. As night approached, everyone began to retire back home in the hope that when they returned the next day, she would be better.
Sadaf stayed at the hospital with her aunt. Everyone believed that her mother was so critical that she needed to be watched by more than one person. Her father was hesitant in going back. He did not want to leave his wife for even a split second but he had to. The night was indeed a very long one. Sadaf refused to stay away from her mother’s bedside. She sat with her, tried to talk to her, and massaged her. Sadaf did not give up hope. She knew that her mother would sooner or later respond. Her aunt forced her to take a quick nap to freshen up; meanwhile she would keep a tight check on her. As reluctant as Sadaf was, she decided to sleep on the bed next to her mother for an hour.
Forty-five minutes later, her aunt woke her up shouting joyously that her mother had opened her eyes. Sadaf got up from her sleep and saw that her mother was looking at her directly. She jumped out of bed and went up to her mother, rejoiced that she was getting better. When she got to her side, her mother looked at her with extreme despair and then shut her eyes. The respiratory devices began to show a horizontal line. Her aunt called the family up saying it’s over. Sadaf screamed, “Mama, mama! Open your eyes please! Please open your eyes for me, for papa, for your sons! Please mama, don’t do this. You can’t do this to us!” Sadaf went absolutely hysterical. She went running into the corridor looking for help. She screamed at the nurses to fix her mother. There had to be something someone could do. What about the electric shocks that they used in movies to revive patients? She wailed and screamed. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything? She rushed back and clung to her mother’s body. This was all a bad dream, she thought to herself.
When her father and brothers arrived, it had been too late. They had removed the oxygen mask from her mother’s face and taken off all other life support equipment. Her father banged the walls crying helplessly. Her youngest brother kissed her mother’s face and cried. The elder one moaned and fainted. Soon, the rest of the family arrived. It really was the end. The hospital staff then took her mother away to get her ready for the burial.
Sadaf sat there, thinking, that within a couple of moments, her whole world had been turned upside down. And she had just lost the most precious gift that Allah had bestowed upon her. And she blamed herself for it. She hadn’t said her proper good bye. She hadn’t apologized for being a bad daughter. Why had she gone to sleep at all? Her mother would still be alive if she had been up to take care of her. Why had Sadaf been a selfish girl her whole life? Why had she been in a denial the whole time her mother had been unwell. Maybe if she had taken it more seriously and looked after her mother properly she would still have been with them. It was her fault that she had lost her mother and she was the reason her family was now broken.
Sadaf not only went into severe depression that moment onwards, but no matter what one said to her, she refused to accept that this was Allah’s will and she had nothing to do with it. She beat herself over this for years. She lost her confidence and her will to live. She became more of a zombie. Every day she cried over losing her mother. People called her attention seeking and some even severed ties with her due to her consistently depressing behavior. A few of her friends stuck with her through these hard times. But no matter what anyone said, she just could not get over it. All she believed was that she was a bad person, Allah had punished her by taking away her mother and she could not do anything about it.
Relatives and friends told her to seek Allah’s guidance by praying and seeking His forgiveness. But she still saw no hope in anything. She messed up her academic and family life by becoming a complete alien. She felt that she was alone and that she was doomed to be like this forever. Many significant events in her life came and went; none strong enough to provide her with the proper closure required for her to understand it wasn’t her fault.
One fine day, she and her family were on their way to dinner. Out of nowhere a huge truck appeared and her father hit his foot on the brake as fast as he could. The car screeched and spun around and came to a halt hitting the road divider. They had managed to escape a very horrendous accident. It was indeed no less than a near-death experience. It was in the truck’s blinding lights and her brothers’ screams that it dawned upon her that life and death is in the hands of Allah alone. When they managed to get back home after that traumatic experience, she hugged her family tightly and wept. It was then, that she realized, that it was time to let go. Let go of the self-blame feelings that she had been nurturing for the past couple of years. Let go of the regret that she could have changed what had happened. Let go of the hope that her constant melancholy would make a difference. In fact, she grasped, how one moment had turned her life upside down a few years ago, another moment that day had brought her back to sanity and given her a new perspective.
She now not only cherished her new life, but cherished every moment she spent with her family. She worked hard to build her life back from scratch and she believed strongly that her mother was looking down on them every day, smiling proudly.
