07/08/2026
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Chapter Sixteen
I did not cry throughout the rest of that night.
Perhaps my body had exhausted every tear it had, or perhaps my mind simply refused to accept what had happened. I just sat there, staring at Baba's face, expecting him to move at any moment. Expecting him to open his eyes and complain that everyone was making unnecessary noise around him.
But he didn't.
The nurses eventually came in and asked us to step outside so they could prepare his body.
That was the first time it truly occurred to me that my father was no longer a patient.
He was no longer fighting for his life.
He was no longer waiting for another doctor's review.
He was no longer the man we had all gathered around, hoping would recover.
He had become a body.
Even thinking about it now still feels strange.
How does a person go from being the centre of your world to becoming someone people refer to as "the body"?
I hated that word.
It sounded so cold.
So distant.
So unlike my father.
My mother had become unusually quiet.
She wasn't crying anymore.
She simply sat where she was, staring into space as though someone had taken away every thought in her mind.
Every now and then, someone would sit beside her and whisper words of comfort, reminding her that every soul shall taste death and that Allah gives life and takes it whenever He wills.
She nodded every single time.
But I knew she wasn't hearing any of it.
Neither was I.
Before sunrise, arrangements for Baba's janazah had already begun.
In Islam, death waits for no one.
There are no elaborate preparations.
No unnecessary delays.
No keeping the deceased for days because family members are travelling from different parts of the country.
Once everything necessary has been done, the deceased is returned to his Lord.
As simple as that.
Yet there was nothing simple about watching it happen to your own father.
Relatives began arriving one after another.
Neighbours came.
Members of our Jam'ah came.
Friends I had never met before came.
Colleagues from Baba's workplace came.
Everyone had something kind to say about him.
"He was a good man."
"He was always smiling."
"He never turned anyone away."
"He loved helping people."
"He was sincere."
"He feared Allah."
I listened to all of them quietly.
It felt comforting to know that the man I called Baba had left behind beautiful memories in the hearts of so many people.
At the same time, every kind word felt like another reminder that he was truly gone.
When it was finally time for the janazah prayer, I watched from a distance as the men carried Baba away.
That was the last time I would ever see him.
I wanted to run after them.
I wanted to call his name.
I wanted to ask them to wait.
Just for a few more minutes.
Just one more conversation.
Just one more smile.
Just one more chance to hear him call me "Aniyah."
Instead, I stood exactly where I was.
My feet refused to move.
My throat refused to produce any sound.
All I could do was watch until they disappeared from my sight.
It was over.
Just like that.
The house was filled with people throughout the day.
There was barely any space to sit.
Women moved in and out of the kitchen preparing food for visitors.
People recited the Qur'an quietly.
Others made du'aa.
Some shared memories of Baba that made everyone smile through their tears.
I learnt things about him that day that I had never known.
One elderly man spoke about how Baba had quietly paid his children's school fees years ago without telling anyone.
Another man said Baba once helped him secure a job when everyone else had turned him away.
A woman told my mother how Baba had paid for her husband's medication during a difficult period in their lives.
The stories kept coming.
One after another.
Listening to them made me realize something.
I knew Baba as my father.
But so many other people knew him as the answer to prayers they had once made.
That thought comforted me.
By evening, the visitors slowly began leaving.
One by one, the house emptied until it was only us.
The silence that followed was unlike any silence I had ever known.
It wasn't peaceful.
It was loud.
Painfully loud.
For the first time since I was born, Baba was not in the house.
I found myself looking towards his favourite chair in the sitting room.
It was empty.
I don't know why that hurt me so much.
Perhaps because I could almost picture him sitting there with the television remote in one hand and his reading glasses resting low on his nose.
Every evening after work, that was exactly where he sat.
Sometimes he watched the news.
Sometimes football.
Sometimes he simply sat there after Solatul Maghrib, reading the Qur'an quietly before asking one of us to make tea for him.
That chair would never be occupied by him again.
I walked into his room slowly.
His prayer cap was still hanging on the hook behind the door.
His perfume was still on the bedside table.
His glasses were folded neatly beside a book he had been reading before he was admitted into the hospital.
His slippers were still positioned exactly the way he had left them.
Everything was there.
Everything except him.
I picked up his prayer cap and held it against my chest.
It still carried his scent.
That was when I finally cried again.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
I simply sat on the edge of his bed and cried until my chest hurt.
I cried because nobody would ask me whether I had eaten anymore.
I cried because nobody would call me every evening to ask how lectures had gone.
I cried because nobody would remind me to stop watching Korean movies and go and read my books.
I cried because nobody would tease me whenever I overslept during the holidays.
I cried because I would never again hear him say, "Aniyah," in that calm voice that somehow always made everything feel alright.
Death has a strange way of introducing itself.
It doesn't only take the person.
It takes the little things too.
The everyday conversations you assumed would always be there.
The ordinary routines you never thought to appreciate.
The random advice you rolled your eyes at.
The laughter that filled the house.
It takes all of it.
That night, sleep refused to come.
I lay beside my mother, listening to the occasional sound of her muffled sobs in the darkness.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Baba smiling at me from his hospital bed.
I heard him saying, "Take care of your mother."
At the time, I had laughed and told him he would tell her himself.
Now, those words had become my responsibility.
I turned towards my mother.
She had finally fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Her face looked older than it had just a few days earlier.
Grief had a way of doing that to people.
I reached over and gently held her hand.
Then, in the quietness of the night, I whispered a promise that only Allah and I would ever hear.
"Baba, I don't know how I am going to do this without you."
My voice broke.
"But I promise you that I will."
"I will take care of Mummy."
"I will finish my degree."
"I will make you proud, even if you are no longer here to see it."
The room remained silent.
There was no answer.
Only the quiet certainty that life had changed forever.
And somehow, I knew that from that day onward, every achievement in my life would carry a small sadness.
Because the first person I would always want to tell...
Would no longer be there to answer.
