Rotten Leaves

​It’s becoming a routine that I wish didn’t exist. Another pillar of the community passing. Where to sit at ADAMS, where to park at Sterling Cemetery. When to visit Hadi. They all hit hard but this one…Uncle Ashraf’s smile alone could lift my spirits. Seeing Auntie and him at Jummah always warmed my heart.

Rotten Leaves

​It’s becoming a routine that I wish didn’t exist. Another pillar of the community passing. Where to sit at ADAMS, where to park at Sterling Cemetery. When to visit Hadi. They all hit hard but this one…Uncle Ashraf’s smile alone could lift my spirits. Seeing Auntie at him at Jummah always warmed my heart. In true Auntie fashion, when I went to hug her, I was wearing a mask so she didn’t recognize me and asked my name. I pulled my mask down and said Saira and she hugged me tighter. While hugging Gazala, I thought about how much the drawings she created for Hadi mean to me.

I watched Imam Magid start the burial process and it reminded me how life can change so suddenly. This life is temporary. At the masjid, a friend came up to me and said the last Janaza she had been to was Hadi’s. I don’t remember a lot from that day but I do remember asking Leena where she wanted to sit and she said upstairs. I think that’s why I usually go upstairs for janazas.

You know how there are those aunties and uncles who you just feel comfortable around? Gazala’s parents are the embodiment of that feeling for me.

Gazala, Shaleeza, Fatima as well as all the people I saw and hugged today, we were reunited in the way only a janaza can. Weddings, births, graduations…and now janazas.

Right before the burial, I got a text message from an aplastic anemia warrior mother. Her daughter just went through her third transplant and is about to be intubated. 10-20% chance of living. She said she didn’t know how to go on from here. I told her she didn’t have to know at this moment. Explaining that intubation sucks and I got through it by squeezing my beautiful son’s hand and we kind of hand our own language. Kinda like Zakaria and him had their “brother language” growing up. Aplastic anemia is a beast…and if Allah wills, Hadi will have a friend to discuss cyclosporine with…wonder how she will react to him saying it tasted like rotten leaves

La halwa wala quwatta, illa billa.