Of Loss and Faith and Love and Life
Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas. I wish with everything that I never had to learn what that meant. I so badly miss the days when if I heard someone say “DIPG” I had no idea what they were talking about. But I know all too well what DIPG means; an inoperable brain tumor that affects children with no positive prognosis.
As it turns out, I’m writing this on my cousin Muneeb’s tenth birthday. Today I should have been sending some cheesy messages about how he’s finally double digits but instead, he passed away late November in 2019. I remember that last month of his life better than I remember any other time of my life. I remember sitting with my parents as they got phone calls from my family saying that things were getting worse. I remember hearing that the nurses were suggesting that we should start making arrangements for end of life care. I remember all the weekends we drove to Canada to visit them. And I remember not being okay in the slightest. It’s so weird waiting for the inevitable to happen when you want nothing more than for it to never come.
On this day one year ago, it was one of the days we were driving to Canada. A lot of my family had made their way to Canada to celebrate Muneeb’s 9th birthday with him. He was staying at a full-time hospice care center for children and the nurses had arranged for a clown to come see him and they all gave him gifts. We ordered all of his favorite food and I gifted him an Angry Birds movie DVD because we had seen that movie together in theaters the previous summer. I don’t know why I’m giving all these details but I guess it’s been awhile since I thought about those days. It’s a gift and a curse how easy it is to remember all these details from when he was already so sick. I wish I could remember more of when he was a toddler and had the fobbiest accent and was constantly making us laugh. He was so funny without even trying. The good funny that has your stomach hurting but you can’t explain the joke. You just had to be there.
I remember the moment I found out he passed away. It’s weird when you’re not shocked at a loved one’s death. Death almost always catches us off guard and it’s visit on November 27th was no exception. It’s weird having to text your friends about it and it’s weird to email your professors about it and it hurts to think about it but I had an 8-hour drive filled with nothing but thinking.
I always struggled with the idea of heaven. If you ever try to have it explained to you, it sounds too good to be true. We grow up hearing that Heaven is all the best things on earth except infinitely times better. When it’s hard to imagine a place that could be that great, it’s hard for it to really mean anything. Of course, I want to go to heaven, but what is it? That day that Muneeb passed away was the first day I knew that heaven was the best place that could ever exist. Just knowing that heaven will be the place where we will see Muneeb happy and healthy- I’ve never strived to reach Jannah more.
The thing about grieving is that you never really stop. Every time the slightest incident makes you remember, it feels like you’re right back to the start. Grief is internal and consuming and sometimes you don’t know how heavily it’s been weighing on you until you finally take a moment to breathe. You can’t grieve in the background while the rest of your life carries on normally. You have to admit things aren’t normal and that’s hard to do. When I got back to school, it’s not like people could read my mind and see the hardships I was going through. Life carried on the same way it did the week before.
The world doesn’t stop for tragedies. But you can stop. You can take moments for yourself. You deserve to take moments for yourself. You also should talk to your friends. You’re really not a burden. We all think we’re burdens on the people who love us but take it from me, if you keep letting your suffering weigh you down one day you will collapse under it all. Your burdens will never just disappear one day without you ever having to deal with them. So, reach out because no one wants you to be a martyr to your own pain with our extremely limited time on this earth.
Muneeb had been diagnosed with cancer for 8 months before he passed. The day I found out was in March of 2019. I had gotten home late the night before and, in the morning, I asked how Muneeb’s doctor’s appointment had went. The doctors had been concerned and wanted him to have an MRI taken. I really never thought that what the doctors were concerned about was a tumor. Even hearing it that morning just didn’t feel right. That whole day, things just didn’t feel right. But it was MSA Thursday and it was Quran night. I can’t explain what it felt sitting there for 2 hours listening to Quran that night. I just know that I was meant to be there in that moment, being guided.
When we moved to our new house, we declared one empty room our family’s masjid room. Our masjid room was still empty until my cousins came over during winter break a few weeks after Muneeb’s passing. I told them they were going to help me paint a verse on the wall, but still we had no ideas. Then she came across this verse:
Inna ibraheema lahaleemun awwahun MUNEEB.
Needless to say, everything fell into place. We knew instantly we were going to put in on the wall, and in our hearts. The verse translates to “Ibraheem was tender hearted and most fore bearing, intent on returning to Allah again and again”. Here was a verse that literally gave Muneeb the meaning, intent on returning to Allah SWT again and again. The importance of keeping Quran in your heart, and allowing it to hold meaning to you is so relevant, especially in times of distress and difficulties. There is some ease that can only come with the reassurance of the words of God.
I think we know that we’re just visitors on earth, but we don’t understand what that means. I’m not going to act like I understand either though. It’s just an observation. Another observation of mine is that I don’t think weather is a real thing. Like the weather industry. How can you tell me it’s going to rain 7 day from now? How do you know clouds are going to form and precipitate in 7 days? It’s ridiculous. If anyone knows don’t tell me- I don’t even want that knowledge.
I guess we always knew that November would be a hard month, but I guess I didn’t realize the dread would just hit as soon as midnight struck on October 31st. It’s funny how the human mind compartmentalizes these things. I don’t know if I used that word right. The point is, like I said, grief doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s something you have to deal with and work through. And maybe that means writing a blog post that maybe no one will read but at least I got out what I needed to. I really miss Muneeb so much. I wish it hadn’t happened to our family or any family for that matter. There are reasons for everything that are too complex and layered for me to ever really grasp but I’m okay knowing that reason exists.
By Sameen Siddiqui
