Real Heartache

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

Oh the joys of adulthood.

My grandma is sick. Really sick. The doctors say that the worst part is actually the anorexia. My grandma has no appetite. She has lost about 50 lbs in a month, subhanAllah. It's not looking good, subhanAllah, but alhamdulillah, she's made it longer than at least one of my aunts had expected and she's eating a little better, mashaAllah.

With my maternal family pushing her probable demise down my throat, I am starting to have nightmares and "day"mares. There has only been one other woman who had so much influence on me (my paternal great-aunt) and unfortunately she passed away in 1999. The way her face looked while she lay in her coffin has been embedded in my mind. It looked pink, almost youthful, almost more alive than it looked in the days prior to her death...almost like wax. I know that was the funereal "paints".

I remember how I felt when I saw her body there.

Grief is a strange thing. It lessens with time, but (at least in my case) it never really goes away. And I didn't scream, I cried a little when I was in private, it came as no surprise--but it's like a part of your heart dies. For me, it really is a feeling in the chest. Like it's being constricted or as if someone is sitting on it. A heavy someone. My head goes light and I feel kind of dizzy when I think about my loved one who has passed.

Yet, I smile when I think about the time I spent at her house (my great-aunt) and I remember her. The things that I didn't really take notice of as a child, I can appreciate now as an adult. She was really a kind woman. Time does that. Alhamdulillah, it covers up that one sad day by making me remember the better days before that--and after that.

I'm not that far yet with processing my grandma's old age. Two years ago, she was healthier than my mother. This has all been pretty sudden. She recovered after the first stroke and even after the second there seemed to be hope.....but after the third? And cerebral hemhorrage which bled for days? A severe kidney infection that caused disorientation and severe nauseau (good luck eating)? And now my aunt has taken leave of work, so she can take care of my grandma--an hour away from where I live. This is me...living in Germany, I have no insurance to drive a car in America and I don't have enough moolah to rent a car.....If I ever felt between a rock and a hard place, it's now.

To delve into melodramatics a little (just let me, please), I feel as if I'm dying with her. I came here, because my mom said she was sick. I got here as soon as I could....now I am stuck here knowing that she's "so close and yet so far" and I miss her. I'm happy that I got to spend even a little time with her. Grateful. She's weak and she's sick, but she's still the same person she always was, alhamdulillah. I saw her at the hospital and my brother took me to visit her...he'll take me again soon, inshaAllah...

I don't know what it will be like when it actually happens. I know it can happen anytime, anywhere and it MUST happen to everybody...I could even go before her, Allahu Alim. Bad (and good) things happen....but it's more likely that she will go before me. The woman who took care of me when I was small, made breakfast for 10 people who just "dropped in", loves small children and cats as much as I do, and lived so quietly and calmly that she made her home my haven. She has treated me better than my own mother ever did, subhanAllah.

Oh, I hate getting older. Maturity comes in leaps and bounds, but I don't want to be mature right now. I want to be stubborn and kick and scream and say that it's not fair. Funny image, huh?

May Allah subhanahuwata'ala protect the Muslimeen and guide our families to the right path and let us die as Muslims. Ameen.

May Allah subhanahuwata'ala sooth the hearts of those who have watched their loves ones pass before them. Ameen.

May Allah subhanahuwata'ala give us comfort and security in the Deen. Ameen.

Fi aman Allah,

Katherine