Living Wisdom

AA

My grandmother (nani ammi) is Alhamdullilah so beautiful.

How is it that when you look at someone's eyes, you see the manifestation of wisdom, compassion, and a soul that has seen and experienced just about everything?

Subhan Allah. Of course, this is only through Allah's Mercy.

When you look at her and can understand, through some inexplicabe way, that she has lived through so much you cannot but help to marvel at her strength.

You cannot help but to remember the loss of her beloved son and our beloved momu, Raja Samadani (may Allah be well pleased with him. Ameen). You feel her loss, but also her deep love and affection for him.

You know that she is serious when she tells you that for her eldest son, her pride & joy, she would not only manage to get herself up and go to the airport to pick him up, but would walk to the airport to greet him...no matter the distance.

You're then able to do the impossibe and travel back to time with her stories of a serene, baraqa-filled life back in Pakistan. You can visualize and even taste the food she describes when she tells stories of what and how people used to eat back then. You are in awe of her perseverance. Her vigor and humbleness. Her knowledge. Her elegance. Her love.

And you are then saddened, too, when you see all this, but then also see her takleef. When you see her physically breathless because of her health condition, you are convinced that you have taken your last breaths. And when you massage her to make her feel better, you pray that it was you suffering instead and that your hands were blessed with a power, from Allah, to fill her with energy and to absorb all her worries and hardships away.

You are blown away at her patience. You are humiliated when she repeatedly asks you to stop massaging her, as she herself wishes to be a burden to no one.

And in the moments where you are away from her, you feel as though meaning has been stripped from your heart. In such moments where her bed lies empty, you sit alone by that bed hoping that your eyes are deceiving you. Or cry because you are not certain what to do anymore. Helpless because love and mercy are not with you.

It is a given that all this is from Allah. And so you have no choice but to drop yourself and your inhibitions to Him and thank Him for it. And ask Him forgiveness, too.

And, by the smiling eyes of Nani Ammi, your entire soul is caressed with the sweet rememberance of Allah and longing desire to be with the Holy Prophet (sw), for if my grandmother's eyes are this captivating, then how much and more so is the look from The Beloved of Allah?

It is with these thoughts and emotions that we ask to traverse this earth in his (sw) footsteps, with Allah's Protection, Favor, and Mercy. All the while with Nani Ammi holding our hand.

As Salaamu Alaikoom Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatahu