Ramblings: We are our parents’ legacy

As it gets closer to the end of the year, it also means it is nearing one year since the most devastating days, weeks and months of our lives. These days It is especially hard not to replay those images in our minds over and over and again. Those heartbreaking memories are still as fresh as the first day and many nights we still lie awake thinking of all that happened.

We can't help but start that countdown in our heads; Papa's last Eid with us, the last time we chatted on Skype, his last email to us, his last text, the last time we saw him well and healthy, his last day at his home.. It goes on and on.

And as we do that unconsciously, we are haunted by what those months brought. The things that happened, some too tragic to even talk to anyone about, because no words can explain what and why it happened. No words can describe the pain. It is still too very raw.

I guess we can never ever get past what happened. And that he is not with us anymore. I guess it will always haunt us. But slowly we are learning to live our lives again, slowly we are learning to even enjoy our lives again. Slowly we are learning to smile along with the tears. Slowly we are moving on, as they say.

Around this time last year, Papa had attended his very close friend's daughter's nikah. Around this time last year, we received Eid cards in papa's handwriting. Around this time my sister sent us pictures from last year's Eid. They were beautiful, and papa looked so fresh in them.

This time last year how unaware were we of the storm waiting at our doorstep.

This is real life. We humans are just dust, forever at the mercy of life's storms. We pretend to be many things, we pretend to know it all, we pretend to be able to deal with it all, but in truth we are nothing. Only puppets in Allah's hands forever dependent on Him. This is our reality.

What is in our hands though, is how we act through these storms, how patiently and bravely we endure, how well we fulfill our responsibilities through them or how bitter or cruel these storms in our lives make us. All this is in our control. And when these storms are over? It is in our control what we learn from them, and the people we become.

A friend of mine said the most beautiful thing in the months that followed since Papa's passing (Thank you Nafisa, if you are reading this. That phone call meant more than you will ever know). About how we are our parents legacy. They live through us, in the values they taught us, in the people we become as a result of what they taught us. In all that we pass on to our children. Even though we can never not need our parents, the truth is that we were lucky enough to spend many many beautiful years with papa, enough for him to be able to show us what he believed in, enough for him to pass on his values and the things he learned in life to us. Even though we will wish he had more time with us, we know we are lucky to have known him, to have been his daughters.

And how we live our lives today, without him, speaks more about him than anything else ever does.

Because every day, everything we do, has to reflect what we learned from our parents. We are a piece of our parents. And whether they are with us in this world or not, they live through us and in us!

picture taken by papa in ‘92

Thanks for being there in the good and the bad. Thanks for stopping by!