Thursday, August 22, 2013

Celebrate Life.



Last Friday, we grieved over the sudden death of a student. At that moment and the passing days, we looked at upon our own mortal life and reminded to be better people as well as not taking our own life for granted.

Today, my wife and I went for a follow up pregnancy checkup...as the doctor scanned our little baby...it moved. It's little arms move side by side as if it was waving and moving it's little mouth...maybe it was telling us, that everything will be okay...both of us looked at our child with renewed faith in Allah the Al-Mighty, as well as bringing back as much happiness to us...

Today...we celebrate life.

-Izham Aris


*Thank you my darling husband.

Nadia Zahari (1988-2013).

16 August 2013

So fleeting life is. Just yesterday, she ran to hug me, all smiles and touching my belly, so excited for the new life inside me. "Saya nak kawin!", she said, speaking of a future life. Always smiling, witty and exciting, my dear beloved student, Nadia Zahari who always had this infectious spark in her, has returned to Rahmatullah today. Talented and creative, spirited in her cause, the sad news of her passing broke my heart. For all that you have done and been, I pray you are happy, meeting HIM, so early. Al-Fatihah. May your soul be blessed and placed among the Mu'mins. Condolences to her family. 
*will miss you dearly*

She was exceptional. I am happy for her, she met her Creator in a state where not a single person has anything bad to say about her. So many prayers being prayed, kind words being said. I am scared for me, for us, all of us. Her passing, so sudden, jolts me to the core. What about me? What about us? When I leave this world, in what state would I be in? Where do I stand in the eyes of God?

Still in the state of grief, here I share with all of you one of the legacy that arwah Nadia Zahari championed, her own personal project; jom solat  May we all be guided, truly in death, there is a lesson to be learnt.


https://www.facebook.com/jomsolah

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

7 Syawal

Hari Raya still lingers but I’m thinking about marriage.

Most probably it had something to do with that. Among other things.

4 years ago I got married. It wasn’t a particularly romantic notion. I wasn’t crazy in love then. We didn’t exactly date sort of, we started dating after we decided we wanted to marry each other. And that was only like what, 6 months by when we were basically in the midst of preparing for a wedding and I finishing my Masters thesis (because my mom won’t let me marry otherwise). I married a good friend, a dear confidante, my colleague whom I knew barely a year before.

Why did I marry? Why did I marry him?

For many nights in the year before I got married, I was lost and sad. Alone in my rented room, some nights, when the moon was full and the moonlight bathed the room in soft soothing glow from the open window, in the middle of the night, I would cry and pray.

I would pray and cry really hard. For guidance. For strength. For God to just love me. Just love me. I was almost 28 years old, alone, jobless and I didn’t know what I did with my life and where I was going. I was hopeless and desperate. But I held on steadfastly to the one and only thing that I knew was true. La Ilaha Illallah.

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praises be to Allah, Lord of the worlds,
Most gracious, most merciful,
Owner of the day of judgment,
Only you I worship, Only from you I ask for help,
Show us the right path,
The path of those whom YOU favour,
And not of those who earn YOUR anger.

It is Al Fatihah from the Quran. I have never finished reading the Quran, I have never Khatam. I forgot most of what I was made to memorize as a child. I am not particularly religious or pious like some people I know. I miss the 5 obligatory prayers. And the times that I read the translations, sometimes I don’t understand them, sometimes I don’t care. I only knew the meaning of Al Fatiha by heart. This, I know, this I understand. I repeated them over and over and over again. Desperately clinging to every word. Help me God, please. Help. Show me the right path.

I felt so alone and all I wanted was for God to forgive me. To love me. Please don’t forsake me.

 In time, in HIS time, I made new friends, discovered new experiences, I got a job as a lecturer at a university. Teaching made me forget my sadness but loneliness still hovers over me. I had a friend, who sat beside me at the office, his name -Izham. We became fast friends and enjoy talking about, everything. We were just really good friends. At which point did we start becoming more than just friends I wasn’t really sure. And I think we never stopped being friends. We just decided to get married. Because we both wanted to be married. Each other was a choice that came afterwards, somewhat logically?

Why did I want to be married?
At that time I think it was companionship. Just someone to share this life journey with. Although I remind myself over and over, in the end we are all alone anyway. Subconsciously maybe, my independent self longed to be taken care of. But I remember thinking I wanted to be somebody’s MOST favourite, MOST special person. I wanted to mean something to somebody. I wanted to mean a lot to somebody. I wanted to be somebody to somebody. I wanted to be number one on somebody’s list. I wanted to matter.

Marriage to me personally, was a journey to be a better person. It is a process that makes you go through all sorts of trials and tribulations that when you succeed in struggling past it, you are better than before. Improved in many aspects. It is meant to be a challenge, yes. Constant challenge, constant battle. And getting to know yourself more, discovering your humanness in relation to others as well as your own self, brings you that much closer to your Creator.

It is like deconstructing yourself, and fixing flaws through many mistakes, understanding your own design so that you can be better and in the process, learn much about The Designer Himself.

Why Izham?
That, I believe as a Muslim has been pre-ordained by God. As is life and death. We have our wishlist, our ideal partner, yes we can hope and pray. But in the end, Allah knows best and it is our free will that makes it or break it. We are just asked to do our best but most importantly have utter undying faith in HIM, no matter how and what happens. Because, there is no other God than Allah and He is Most Gracious Most Merciful than the human mind can ever fathom, imagine or understand.