By Mahmood Adamu Imam
As my phone rang, I aimed shockingly to grab it and see for myself who was calling in such an irregular hour. It was some minutes after 3am. My instincts told me that something was amiss.
All through the night I was shivering, awaiting the terror that lingers with the coming of daybreak. Leaving mom at about 11pm at the hospital, I was scared of what situation I would find her in the next morning.
But before then, for a yet unrealised reason, I insisted on calling dad. He needed to be aware of the recent transfer of mom to a special unit where patients require an uninterruptible access to oxygen, I concluded. He came and we served her well; my sister, I (and, of course, my brother, Sa’ad, with the love in his heart, and whose service at the critical hour was rather spiritual) and father.
We all massaged her feet and palms in rounds as we waited for the exact time (9:05pm) of giving her food after the insulin injection (a medication given to diabetic patients when their sugar level is not stable).
We were all listening to the sound of the oxygen machine as mom smiled often, narrating what had happened – as though it was a regular matter – before dad and I got in. She explained boldly how she thought she would be in a comma when her breathing level dropped to fifty. “It is eighty now”, she said in her attempt to calm us down. Her situation seemed critical, but her face refused to portray sorrow. I was amazed at her sick face. It was uniquely bright. It was cheerful. It was lively. The dull mood faded, until when, time to time, she pointed that her inhaler should be given to her.
Doctors rushed after every short while to check on her condition. They were lenient with us – it was a special room and we were not supposed to crowd it, but we did, and they allowed it – probably for a foreseen reason. Maybe they suspected some inevitable fate. It was neither the asthma, nor the diabetics that was in their reach to cure. They were meant to help; but as such a time, they happened to be helpless.
Dad filled in the gaps of mom’s fingers with his own fingers and assured her that all the suffering would become history. After all, it was all planned before we were born. And she was lucky to have a strong mind that regarded this divine test as a decree.
My sister, Na’ima, opened a bottle water and poured a small amount, as ordered by dad, so that he would say a prayer and let it be the first thing she would drink when it was time for her to be fed. Soon after, Na’ima (Pretty), poured out a half cup of plain sweetened milk in a cup that was held by me. I let her drink it bit by bit until the cup was empty. We together consoled her.
I recited to her some prayers and she repeated after me, in a notable slow voice. I never thought it would be the last time I would do that. I was relieved, especially when we recited together the best prayer for forgiveness. I intended to do that in the next morning to make her gain the forgiveness of Allah, as expressed by the Prophet to be effective as long as one recites at dust and passes away before daybreak and vice versa (Alas! the daybreak was to be out of her destined time). Lastly, I recited to her the ‘Kalimatusshada’.
It will forever remain within my recollection the last wave she waved at me after several warnings to me, all through the day, to look after my health, and also, directed me to bring her clean and comfortable clothes she would wear in the next morning; but only to find out later that the clean and comfortable clothes were to be nothing but a white fabric with which she was dressed in to her grave.
I left the hospital only because I had no other option. It was our aunty, Lubabatu and Naima that were destined to witness mom’s peaceful departure to the afterworld, answering the call of her Lord.
If life were to remain still, then she would have lived longer to see the return of her own child, whom she was to him a ladder, and to her a darling, dressed in the white Navy outfit, which she thought would fit him right. If only life were to remain still, then she would have lived longer to see what would become of us, her own, now bereaved, three children, Na’ima, Mahmood and Sa’ad.
