Skip to main content

When Death Comes Knocking

It's a scary thing to thinking about for most of us. We live our lives, we hope, we pray and try and enjoy our natural surroundings especially in our fantastic but all too short summer. Then something unexpected happens. Something we never imagined. Something we keep far from our minds. Death touches a friend or family member.

When someone has been sick for a long time, with cancer or some other disease, we are prepared. When we face the sudden death of a youth we are not. Today I visited my son. Before I could walk into the office, the director pulled me aside. “Can I speak to you privately for a minute?”. I walked away from my car a little apprehensive about what I was going to hear. Maybe my son got into a fight, maybe he needed stitches...

“One of our volunteers had a fatal car crash last night...he's on life support...they're pulling the plug this morning”. So many thoughts and questions flooded my mind as I made sincere condolences to him. He continued the story about Charlie. He was a graduate of the program and volunteered to give back to the organization that turned his life around. They just hired him on 2 weeks ago and now...he was dead. Twenty-two years old. My eyes became watery. I steadied myself and asked how well my son knew him. All the time thinking rapidly about what state I was going to find my boy in.

At that moment I heard my son's voice calling “Mom”. I turned to see him in a black tank top and grey sweats. We hugged and sat down at a picnic bench.

My son wasn't crying or angry. He wanted to talk, to tell me about Charlie. I listened as he described a youngish looking boy with glasses and dirty blonde hair in a “swoop”. Maybe I'd seen him the last time I was there. He told me how he'd known Charlie for 2 months. Every day they would have a talk. They were friends. Charlie had done 24 hours straight at the organization and hadn't slept. My son recalled to me how he sat with Charlie and another friend last night before Charlie left. “Mom, there is something that's really bugging me...I told him he was too tired to drive last night. I said 'you've been up for 24 hours why don't you just stay here and sleep”. Charlie said: “I used to stay up for 24 hours straight back in the day, It's fine I'm used to it”. My son replied with “ But this isn't back in the day”. Charlie left with those words, making his decision to head out.

Grief is a strange place to be. I suggested that all our lives are already written, that God decided it was his time. My son amazed me with the words “Charlie had come full circle. He recovered, he had 2 scholarships and had a job here. He made amends with his father. He completed what he had to do.” He didn't blame himself or think that he could have stopped Charlie's death. He accepted it.


“Work for your life as though you will live forever, and work for the Hereafter as though you will die tomorrow”

- Prophet Mohammed (SAWA)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

She Plays With Dolls

girl hugging baby doll by Sarah Rypma Aisha (ra) was noted to play with dolls. Aisha reported: I used to play with dolls in the presence of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and my girlfriends would play with me. When the Messenger of Allah would enter, they would hide themselves but he would call them to join me and play with me. Source: Sahih Bukhari 5779 Aisha (ra) stands out as a model wife and is often noted as being Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) favourite and therefore worthy of close study of the qualities that made her such. A popular fact about Aisha (ra) is that she played with dolls. The purpose of hadiths are to transmit the sunnah for the benefit of mankind down through the ages. “Whosoever followed the Messenger, has indeed followed Allah.” (Surah an-Nisa, 80) What can we learn from a hadith describing a young girl at play? Doll play is more than a fun pass-time for little girls. It has multiple developmental and psychological benefits. Pretending...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Marry?

I've been trying to create characters for a piece I'm working on and like any writer, I've been digging deep into some personal questions. One of the questions my main character asks is “Why can't I find a good woman to marry me?” This is a tough one. I've been soaking in the tub of hopes and fears, lathered with a scrubby sponge of psychology and finally rinsed off with religion to answer this. The response came to me in the form of another question: “Would you marry you ?” Without becoming egotistical or slipping on the wet floor of self-loathing, what would his answer be? Probably a mixed bag of yes and no. And it's true we have our faults. Looking for that “perfect” person will probably mean he will never get married because there is no perfect person out there. My main character is clearly not willing to settle for just anyone, and so he shouldn't. Neither should the women that he encounters. Standards should play a part in this very import...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dignity and Social Reform: An Islamic Perspective

dig·ni·ty ˈdiɡnədē/ noun noun: dignity the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect a sense of pride in oneself; self-respect. Islah or Al-Islah (ألإصلاح ,إصلاح, al-ʾIṣlāḥ ) is an Arabic word usually translated as "reform", in the sense of "to improve, to better, or to put something into a better position." Humans are imbued with an inherent dignity. We have the responsibility to nurture the sense of self-respect inherited since the first man and woman walked the earth. The United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights state that recognition of the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world. For centuries moral and ethical codes were rooted in the fiber of civilization. Rules and standards of conduct like Chivalry, Victorian etiquette and 1950s post war manners give examples of codified moral conduct...
Post a Comment
Read more