“Written by me on the 15th anniversary of my father’s passing.”
On the 15th Anniversary of My Father’s Passing
They say that with time, grief takes on a different shape.
And as the years pass, even loss changes. It grows stronger, hurts more deeply. Perhaps the sadness itself becomes lighter, but the sense of absence grows larger.
The Story of the Bridge
To the soul of my father, may God have mercy on him.
She saw the bridge collapse before her eyes.
What she witnessed was far too vivid to dismiss as an ordinary dream. It felt like reality she had lived through for a few fleeting seconds—somewhere in another world—before returning to life with a scream that woke her to the sound of her own voice.
She placed her hand on her chest, struggling to catch her breath.
“May God protect us,” she whispered.
At that moment, she felt certain that something was going to happen.
She did not understand the meaning of the dream, but she remembered hearing a voice within it saying:
“It will come in two months.”
She began wondering—who would come? What would happen in two months?
Anxiety took hold of her mind.
She hurried to her mother and told her about the dream.
Her mother understood the dream. She understood the message.
She looked away from her daughter and chose her words carefully, hoping to ease her heart and calm her fears.
“Perhaps it is something good. The Lord of all goodness brings nothing but الخير.”
The girl sighed, not understanding what her mother truly meant.
Days passed.
The girl forgot the dream and stopped counting the days.
But her mother did not forget.
She chose not to tell her daughter what she feared would happen, worried about the weight of the news that might arrive after two months.
And then, two months later—
The phone rang.
The girl answered.
“Hello? Yes, I am his daughter.”
“What?! How did this happen?”
Shocked by what she had heard, she rushed to her mother.
“My father suffered a heart attack. He’s at home now.”
The girl hurried to her father’s house.
She ran up the stairs.
She entered the home.
There he was, lying on the floor.
A faint smile rested upon his face.
What the mother had known—and feared—had come to pass.
The bridge of the house had fallen.
The dream had been nothing more than a preparation for the trial that was about to strike that family.
A verse often comes to my mind:
“Indeed, with hardship comes ease.”
The repetition of this verse in Surat Ash-Sharh feels like a reassurance that every hardship is accompanied by two eases.
One comes before the trial, preparing us for what is ahead.
The other comes during the trial itself.
For the affliction could always have been greater than what occurred, yet God never burdens a soul beyond what it can bear.
Praise be to God for what was, and for what will be.
May God have mercy on every father.
And to everyone who has lost their father:
May you continue to be the beautiful legacy he left behind in this life.