Jharoka

Disclaimer: This post was drafted long ago and not published.

After Eid, God deemed it to be the right time for me to visit my Mom, Dad and sister. It seemed like an eternity had passed since laying my mother to rest. Living far away from your loved ones is difficult when they are alive and a special level of difficult after they pass, or at least that’s what it seems for me.

Living afar, I can’t just get up and go to the cemetery on a random afternoon because I feel like it. Instead, I comfort myself with self talk that their souls are around me at all times and that I shouldn’t fret over my inability to frequent their gravesites. My ability to believe this self talk wanes and waxes with the waves of my grief.

Leading up to my visit, there was a strange mix of excitement, anxiety and sadness. However, when I sat at the gravesites, it was oddly peaceful, cathartic and provided a comforting connection to touch the ground. Was this connection all in my head and thus the feeling some type of psychosomatic response? I don’t know, but I felt it. I was able to wash their headstones, water the grass on their gravesites and lay fresh flowers for them in hopes that somehow these small acts benefitted them in some way.

I kept thinking about the connection with the physical touch of the ground and I can’t help but think that it all goes back to our own creation.

The Qur’an describes how Allah ﷻ created Adam: “We created man from sounding clay, from mud moulded into shape…” (Quran 15:26). And, “He began the creation of man from clay, and made his progeny from a quintessence of fluid” (Quran 32:7-8). “From the earth We created you, and into it We will return you, and from it We will bring you back again” (Quran 20:55). Thus, human beings have a fundamental attachment to the earth, explaining that “connection”.

Over the course of the 5 months, 5 days from my Mom’s passing and 8 months from my Dad’s passing, I would think of all the things I would say when I had the chance to visit them and what prayers I would recite. But when the moment came, it’s as if my brain was an empty balloon of nothingness.

The only thing I could think to recite was Surah Fatiha over and over. Surah Fatiha is the opening chapter of the Quran, a summary of the Quran (in my opinion), the Surah that is read in every rak’ah of the five daily prayers and is highly virtuous for those and many other reasons. It is read on every occasion and it’s reward is sent to the spirits/souls of the the deceased. Besides I figured, God knows what is going on in me and will communicate to their souls on my behalf.

Even though I have returned home and am still filled with grief, I feel a sense of lightness of spirit from my visit. I long for the distance to be less so I can visit more frequently, but I promised myself to work harder to bridge that geography.

If you have made it to this post / page, I would be most appreciative if you could say a prayer for my beloved mother. Thank you.