Grandmothers and Graveyards

A trip to the hometown cemetery with Dadi to visit Nani.

I wrote this letter because I want to remember this moment, honor my grandmother, and hopefully provide myself with a reality check as a 23-year old who forgets that his days, too, are numbered.

This past week, I went with my Dadi (paternal grandmother) to visit the graveyard in Beaumont after she unexpectedly asked me to take her and my aunt the day before. When we got there, she was so thoughtful. She made sure to make time to visit everyone she knew was buried there from my uncle Abdul Ghaffar to my Nani (maternal grandmother) to a baby I didn’t even know who had passed away years ago when I was a young boy. It wasn’t too long ago we were all there to bury a relative in 2022 alone, but I myself had trouble remembering where every family member and community member was buried since there’s no directory and not all of them had tombstones marked with names.

As we left she said something beautiful in Urdu which was in line with the prophetic du’a below where she prayed for those who’ve gone ahead of us and said we will join them all in due time.

“Peace be upon the inhabitants of this abode from among the Believers and the Muslims, and may Allah have mercy on those who have gone ahead of us, and those who come later on, and we shall, God willing, join you.”

From Sahih Muslim

What I’ve come to realize after that brief trip is that my grandmother has spent all of her life since her husband passed away preparing for this moment herself. Not a day goes by where she’s not aware of the reality that one day, someone will be visiting her instead. It made me all the more appreciative of her influence on me spiritually as she continues to be resilient and independent even in old age. She has not wavered in her desire to make the most of this life she’s been given, actively being present in the lives of her children, grandchildren, and now great grandchildren.

May Allah preserve and protect her. If you haven’t taken some time to visit your loved ones, especially those who are still with you, I hope this motivates you to do just that.

Before I wrapped up this brief letter, I happened to come across this excerpt from Imam Zaid Shakir which I don’t see as a coincidence:

He has cut short expectations [for a long life].

One of the greatest forms of deception in this world is the assumption that we will be given a long life. Hence, we assume that we have ample time to repent, ample time to get serious about the religion, ample time to restore broken relations. Oftentimes, our enjoyment of worldly delights and pleasures leads to our procrastination in undertaking good deeds.

Such thinking is deceptive because tomorrow is promised to no one. One of the reasons this fact escapes the procrastinator is his or her infatuation with the world. They revel in its delights and do not stop to take time to consider the sobering reality of death, which is one of the greatest means of cutting short one's hopes for a long life and ones procrastination in undertaking religious responsibilities.

In this respect, one of the most penetrating bits of advice ever given is contained in the saying of the Prophet, peace upon him, “Be in the world as if you are a stranger or a wayfarer.” In the same hadith he mentioned, “When you turn in at night do not anticipate that you will live until the morning, and when you arise in the morning do not anticipate that you will live until the evening.”

Excerpt From: Zaid Shakir, Aftab Malik & Susanah I. Pittam. “Treatise For The Seekers of Guidance.”

Don’t forget to visit those who’ve left us from time to time. If this gave you any reflections you think could benefit me, please share! See you next post, if God wills.