The Calm to My Grief

I write this for me. I write this to help me slow down the waterworks. Because I do think they are necessary. But my loving husband reminded me of something crucial.

It was perhaps my fourth or fifth time crying about the imminent death of my father in the same day. I was in his arms, crying from the depth of soul, crying at the loss of my father's ability to speak.

My father used to command a room with his voice and ideas. You could hear him even if you were standing outside the house. He had a booming voice. A dominant personality. Now his voice barely audible, his words hardly discernible. And that is when he had a chance to be awake for an hour, before he went back into his default sleep mode.

I was crying at the loss of my father, who even when in the hospital after being told he had a month to live, was still making the entire room shake with the laughter of those around him. His charisma was undeniable.

I was crying because tomorrow were going to try to wake him, to say our last words, our goodbyes, our requests for forgiveness, our last human interaction with him. That's if he woke up at all. And that's if he woke up and wasn't combative as cancer patients are during their last days, the pain being unbearable.

I was crying because it may or may not be my last chance to hear how little his booming voice had shrunk to be, but still precious in any case.

But then my husband, who had witnessed me cry repeatedly in one day, thought it an opportune time to remind me to pray for him through the tears. Typically I prayed at other times rather than when I cried, but I headed his advice. And it was freeing.

I prayed that God make this a cleansing for my father, that He allow his suffering to erase any and all sins he has ever committed. Which got me to thinking. My father, as he is now, has absolutely no opportunity to sin any longer. He is a good man, but we all sin. And this is God cutting off any channels of sin for my father. My father is being cleansed of all his sins, and not being given a chance to create new ones. How enormous of a blessing is that? All praise is due to Allah.

It's not to say that crying a lot because of the loss of a loved one is something that needs to slow down. It shouldn't. But this, for me specifically, was freeing, and guiding, and a light in a gaping black hole where my father's voice once boomed.

A Beautiful Surrender

I always feared I would lose my father out of the blue, and that I would never have the chance to ask for forgiveness, to make sure he was happy with me, to thank him for his extreme sacrifice for his family, to thank him for always loving me no matter how strong-headed or rash I was, and  for always forgiving me without a second thought.

I always feared I would lose him before I allowed myself to express how I truly felt to him. It felt uncomfortable to dig deep, and it was easier to focus on what I believed were flaws in our relationship. But I always feared not having those tender moments with my father. I always feared I would only call him "Bob" instead of "baba."

But I was given so many chances, and Allah guided me to take advantage of those opportunities to have those moments with my father. I asked my father if he was happy with me, he said without hesitation that he was happy with me and my siblings. I asked him if he was proud of me, he said without hesitation that he was proud of me and my siblings. I was given the chance to tell him how much of a rock star of a father he was to us, how we witnessed and are grateful for all the years of robotically consistent hard work that he put in to give us more than we even needed.

I am grateful that I was able to spend the past week with him, mostly alone, in his hospital room, learning more and more how to make him happy and comfortable. It has been an honor to get that chance to have that solitude with a father that I admire and respect. It has been humbling to learn to diffuse my strong-headedness to make room for his alpha personality, because that is the wish of my dying father, and I was able to do just that.

I am grateful that I was there with him when he had to face the fact of his mortality, when he had to decide if he wanted to be resuscitated when his body eventually and inevitably gave in to the all-consuming cancer. I am grateful I was the one who was allowed to fall onto him weeping at that moment, as he cried and held me, over the prospect of facing his inevitable and possibly imminent mortality.

I am grateful that I was able to feel that tenderness of love with my father, despite our similar personalities which avoid that kind of depth, mostly because our feelings are too strong and feel overpowering. I am grateful God granted us these moments, because He easily could have made this loss much harder. But He allowed us so many opportunities. And I ask Allah to allow me to be ever grateful for that. To take these lessons, and channel them into my life, through its different pathways.

Facing the death of a loved places you in a completely different realm of life. It is one of the absolute, clearest of ways through which God teaches us how He is truly the only One in control. Death is permanent. There is no undo button. There is nothing and no one in the entire universe that can stop it or slow it. It comes when it’s decreed. Not a second later. It forces us to realize that we never had control, even when we were under the illusion that we did. And to truly find peace and solace in this time of grief, means to surrender all power to Allah, to see and admit that we truly are powerless. Always.

With His power comes wisdom, mercy and love. Which means He is perfect. And whatever He decrees is exactly the perfect event that should occur. And so I surrender to His will. In this and in all things. Big or small. Heartbreaking or breathtaking. God is greater than all.

My father will be in the absolute best of hands. Insha Allah.

I love you baba. So much. And I love the Lord that gave me time with you. Alhamdulillah for all things.

Truly we all belong to Allah, and, without a doubt, to Him we will all return.