On the Death of my Grandparents
On the 16th of February 2012, my beloved, paternal grandfather passed away. Living abroad as I am, I received the dreadful news first thing in the morning and was immediately filled with a complete sense of paralysis. I could do nothing then: I couldn’t travel to attend the Janazah Prayer (Funeral Prayer), I couldn’t attend his funeral, and most of all, I couldn’t be there to hug and comfort my bereaved father and aunt. I went through a rollercoaster of negative emotions and I kept going back to our last call where he cried when I told him we were going to visit him after four months during the Summer vacation. At this, he confessed sadly that it will be too long and that he cannot wait.
Fast forward to June 2020 when my maternal grandmother also passed away in Egypt, the last of my grandparents who was alive. Due to Covid-19, the airport was locked down here where I live and I also couldn’t be with my family during this difficult time. My grandmother has always been extremely generous with her time and active presence during her lifetime. I felt very bad not being there for her in her final days.
It has been at these two instances in my life as an expatriate that have felt the hardest… Being abroad has certainly amplified the pain of losing them, although I don’t know what I could have done differently had I been present. When both of them died, I was away and couldn’t go back to say a final goodbye. Grandparents are very special people in our lives, and mine have been very special to me. Their loss means the loss of the most loyal of friends. They have your best interest at heart and they most probably love you more than your own parents do. Their loss is the loss of a great part of our lovely childhood memories and usually the most tranquil of days. That is why I believe grieving our elderly grandparents is a long process that cannot be rushed; it has to take it’s time.
There are many facets of Islam in which one finds much comfort believing in. I believe it is Allah’s Divine Decree that we should all humbly submit to. Death is a natural consequence of life, and Allah has Wisely written for each human being the exact number of days they would live, even before they were born. Believing in this gives us a sense of Allah’s Justice and Mercy. I am also at peace knowing that my sincere Duaa’s (Prayers) are delivered to them in their graves so I always keep them in my prayers. Another great knowledge is the belief in an Afterlife, where the righteous are admitted into Paradise and the non-believers are thrown into Hellfire. I believe my grandparents were good people who believed in Allah and practiced the faith to the best of their abilities, and hopefully Allah showers them with Mercy and gives them a high rank in Jannah (Paradise).
If you have read this, I ask you to make a prayer for my grandparents and for me. May Allah reunite us in Jannah. Ameen.
