I write this for you.

Mahmoud Darwish said, “Memory, your personal museum, takes you into the realms of what is lost. A sesame field, a plot of lettuce, mint, a round sun that falls into the sea. What is lost grows in you and in the sunset, which grants what is distant the attributes of paradise and purges it of any defect. Whatever lost is worshipped.”

My memory takes me to you. In heartache and in triumph (especially), it has always taken me back to you.

I miss you deepest this time of year. The season of ripe mangoes (remember the ones you sent me from Attock and knowing full well customs wouldn’t allow it (they didn’t), but you did so anyway?), 4 pm chai (our tradition), midafternoon Luddho rounds, the endless stretch of day, the stillness of the night and your stories.

If I squeeze my eyes just enough, I can draw upon those memories. If I listen close enough, I can hear the echoes of your voice. There is a name and a number long since out of service that I cannot bring myself to delete. Videos I cannot bring myself to watch.

I miss you deepest this time of year when everything feels barren and desolate. Two years later, I find myself idling, between what was and what never again will be.

I love this picture. I walked in the rain to say good bye to you the morning we were set to leave. (Hell, I would walk through the fieriest pits of hell, for you). You made me promise that when you died, I would come back and read the Quran at your grave.

This is your grave. I read the Quran for you. (Did the angels send you my salutations?) Sprinkled the flowers off the corsages I wore at the wedding over you. Wept for you. Did the ground feel the depths of my anguish?

Why did it not split beneath my sorrow?

I think of life and count myself amongst the blessed. I roil between verb tenses, between the ache at the base of my throat, the grief that has made itself a home within me and the immense gratitude I have for having known you, for having had you, for having loved you. (For having it reciprocated).

Grief leaves me feeling detached. I find that I do not relate well (although, that might my be my own doing). My family remarks that I only keep company with the elderly and the children. Therein, is both the wisdom for life and the affinity for it.

My professor once said in a letter of recommendation that I “walk gracefully on an elevated plane”.

Is there grace in standing with a glass heart and paper thin bones?

The first six months after you died, I wrote near every day. Documents titled by date housed in a folder on this MacBook. I damn near cried every day too.

Mufti Menk says that when we die, the people we loved in this world will await us at the gates of Paradise. They will embrace us.

I am comforted by this. Comforted by the words of God, by the virtues of sabr, by the promise of a hereafter, love without separation. Comforted knowing that what is with God is never truly lost, never truly gone. All whom I’ve ever loved and lost.

May you keep company with the most righteous amongst us, the saliheen, in the next world. May your grave be widened and may it shelter you on the day where there is no shade but His. May God reunite us in the most beautiful of reunions.

Glory be to God for all of our blessings — you were and will always be my greatest one.

Related posts:

Summer is coming to an end (seriously, tomorrow is September 1st — when did that happen?) and with summer’s end comes the end of our “dog days of summer”. What is that, you ask? Well, summer is meant…

According to research on neuroplasticity the brain continues to grow and learn from what it is exposed to — it never stops. As we get older, life is filled with more routine. Get up, 9-to-5, relax…

I just saw that there is a message option to the followers. Currently, there are 19 followers to this little blog I started and I am so happy to have every one of you following my journey! Last year…