I remember a day where Yaseen and Waseem were teasing each other, play-fighting like brothers usually do. And being a mom, I immediately did what most mothers would – I started to lecture. ‘There’s only two of you…your dad and I won’t always be around, so you two need to be there for each other, look out for each other’.

Little did I know, life wasn’t about to follow the script I had imagined. I was left behind, but Yaseen was gone. And with him left all the hopes and dreams of the future I had so meticulously built.

Ask me and I’ll tell you, I believe it’s the hardest thing in the world to lose someone whom you love.

And if you ask me again, I’d tell you, I think it’s the hardest when the one whom you lose is your child.

For some reason, one that I couldn’t fully understand, I was the mom chosen to bear such a loss.

As surely as Yaseen was gone, the version of me – the one I had known forever – was gone too. My perspective of life changed. My perspective of death changed. My perspective of ‘me’ changed.

This blog follows my journey, a journey where my heart broke and then broke some more, healed and then shattered again into what felt like infinite pieces. And then it healed again…but this time, differently.

I ask you to keep in mind as you follow my journey, that this is a blog by an imperfect mom, prone to imperfections with her thoughts, her actions and her English grammar. So if you see any imperfections, then know it is from me; and if you see any good, then that is only by the Grace of my Lord.

Before I begin, I’ll end off with some thought-provoking words by Ustadh Mostafa Azzam…