Subscribe to RSSArchive for August, 2008:
Last breath
Sometimes it is inspiration
Sometimes it is proof
Always it stands
Saves que robas me querda?
On the nature of friendship
There’s a trio of excellent posts on the nature of friendship posted by Tariq Nelson (What is Friendship?), Margari Hill (There For You) and Sunni Sister (As Far As You Are Unsettled).
Good reading. I need to remember to draft a post on my thoughts if and when I get back to regular blogging.
Peace.
Mamihlapinatapai
From kottke:
It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as “eye-contact implying ‘after you…’”. A more literal approximation is “ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other”.
…
I’d wanted to gather my thoughts to write something for my grandmother’s passing, only to suddenly hear about the death of my uncle as well.
Death, like a thief in the night…
Ina lillah wa ina illaihi raji’un
The Morals of Dervishes
I saw a holy man on the seashore who had been wounded by a tiger. No medicine could relieve his pain; he suffered much but he nevertheless constantly thanked God the most high, saying: ‘Praise be to Allah that I have fallen into a calamity and not into sin.’
If that beloved Friend decrees me to be slain
I shall not say that moment that I grieve for life
Or say: What fault has thy slave committed?
My grief will be for having offended thee.
As found here.
Gratitude II
From other | matters, by baraka
The challenge - to consciously be full of gratitude in speech and thought for a week - reminds me of the day that Rabia al-Adawiyya saw a man passing with a large bandage around his forehead. When questioned about it, he replied that he was suffering from a headache.
“How old are you,” she asked.
He replied that he was thirty, so she asked, “Till today, how have you passed your life?”
He replied, “In perfect health”.
She said, “For thirty years the Lord kept you sound, and you did not fly any colors on your body to express your gratitude for His gift, so that people could ask you the reason for your joy and, then, learning of God’s blessings on you, praise Him! But today, at the first sign of illness, you have flown the colors of complaint for all to see!”
Struck by her words, from that day on the man was known to all as the one who never complained.
Beastie Boys - Gratitude
First of a series…
Good times gone, but you missed them
What’s gone wrong, in your system
Things they bounce, just like a spaulding
What’d you think, you miss your calling
It’s so free, this kind of feeling
It’s like life, it’s so appealing
When you got so much to say
It’s called gratitudeGood times gone, but you feed it
Hate’s grown strong, you feel you need it
Just one thing do you know
What you think that the world owes you
What’s gonna set you free
Look inside and you’ll see
When you got so much to say
It’s called gratitude
From the 1992 album Check Your Head released on Capitol/ Grand Royal.
Nenek
As I wrote this initially I could see the fireworks explode over Marina Bay. Like human lives, we catch but a brief glimpse of their beauty before they fade into the night.
***
My grandmother passed away at dawn on the 8th of August at the age of 86. Walking into the hospital ward had an element of the unreal, as looking at my nenek I might simply assume she were sleeping. We’d gone to visit her many times in the hospital when she was warded because of one ailment or another, how was this time any different? Even on closer inspection I imagined maybe her breathing was a little lighter than normal or that out of the corner of my eye I might be able to catch her eyelids flutter a little.
After reciting the Yasin, I leaned over to kiss her and it was only then that I felt the coldness of her body. Life had been taken from her. I felt the first touch of sadness breeze over me, chilling more than the air-conditioning could. Still, I thought I could hold myself together.
Muslims don’t have what most people would consider funerals, as generally the body should be buried within as short a time period as possible. The burial had to be held back to the next day though as given the circumstances of her death (being an elderly woman living alone with a maid) a post-mortem was supposed to have been conducted. So the whole family gathered at my grandmother’s place, to make prayers for her before the burial. I still half-expected her to be there even as we mourned her. Why wouldn’t she be in the home she’d lived in for so many decades, after all? I still expect to see her now when I go to her place, knowing full well I’d helped put her body in the ground two weeks ago.
She managed to escape the post-mortem and the body was brought back to the house to be bathed and wrapped in the kafan. Even while waiting for all of this I felt sad, but I thought I was still okay. But seeing her body wrapped up and unmoving, and hearing the recitations from the Qur’an whatever slivers of self-control I had left snapped completely.
I wept.
In the cemetary, after the earth was poured into her grave, I found myself unable to walk away. Faced with her mortality and my own, it was still difficult to accept the reality of her death.
