Mother: The fount of all blessings

Mother: The fount of all blessings

Umair Rashid

Parents are a blessing to have in this world which majority of us don’t understand until their shadow vanishes from our life. Indeed, it is their responsibility to provide their child with love and affection, good education, teach them good manners, enlighten them with the teachings of Islam, and choose a good spouse for them. However, responsibility lies also with the children to provide them with the same love, care and affection.
Like any other mother, my mother, too, was very affectionate, loving, caring and humble. She was very industrious and a gentle woman who was without any jealousy, grudge or malice. In childhood I used to be very naughty and playful. She used to satisfy every wish of mine. I used to cry a lot to force her to take me to a neighbour’s bike and make me sit on that, sometimes for the entire day. Whenever I used to go to market with my father, I would not return until a toy that had caught my eye wasn’t purchased for me. When I was admitted to a local school, I used to cry a lot and bunk often. Sometimes, my parents would call the nearby police post to send a policeman to accompany me to school!
I was still a child when my mother was diagnosed with diabetes. By my teenage, her health had very much deteriorated. The armed conflict in Kashmir also to a great extent played a role in affecting her psychological health. Some deaths in our family on the maternal side (her brother, especially) ultimately developed into a severe depression. Despite all this, without caring for herself, she used to make sure that her illness doesn’t become any burden for our family or affect the education of her children. Credit goes to my father who acted as both father and mother for us when my mother’s health worsened.
Despite doing so much for her children, she had this regret inside her that her illness was the cause of unhappiness in the family.
On January 22 this year I was to go back to Aligarh. It was the last time, as it turned out, that she gave me a tight hug. Its warmth and sweetness I can never forget. The tragic news came on February 10 just when I had gone to sleep. I received a phone call from my elder brother asking me to come home immediately. He said mummy was seriously ill. A severe melancholy gripped my heart but I accepted the harsh reality. Somehow, the morning flight was booked for the next day, but this journey was the hardest I had to undergo in my life. Two friends of mine I will always remember for managing everything including money at that time. They accompanied me to the airport from Aligarh at night.
With an hour’s delay, the flight took off and this 1 hour 15 minutes journey from Delhi to Srinagar seemed to me as long as travelling from one planet to another. I reached home to see her last glimpse; she had already left for the heavenly abode.
Now she often comes in my dreams and I wish these dreams to never end. All I can do now is to read the Holy Quran for her, visit her grave, remember all her sweet memories, watch her pictures, and shed tears in lonely dark nights.

“Vo aksar khwaab mein aa kar meri
haalat pai roti hai
Ki zarre khaak mein bhi maa ki
pareshani nahi jati”
Losing mother is one of the greatest and deepest sorrows a heart can know. It is one of the biggest losses in life. Having parents alive is a blessing of more value than wealth, big houses and cars. Islam has given a great status to mothers. A Hadith says, “Paradise lies under the feet of a mother.” When the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had to leave this world, he in his last days said these words: “I wish my mother had been alive and I would have been taking care of her. I wish I would have started my Isha prayer and started reading Surah Al-Fatihah and from my home my mother would have called me, Muhammad; I would have stopped praying (at that moment) and gone to listen to her.”
Mothers can never wish harm for their children. Their love is unconditional. Sometimes, one can get angry over them on some issues but we must bear and absorb it like they had to bear everything we did in our childhood. Never hurt them. They provided their every penny for our betterment. My message is to all people, especially youngsters, to be kind to their parents.

The writer is a BA student at AMU. [email protected]

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