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“Allahu Musta’an“. When your world is crumbling around you, remember these words. Yaqoob AS said these words when he heard the worst of news. And what followed next, for us, was going to be the worst of news. It was two days after Yaseen was discharged, and we were back at hospital. He was spiking […]

The journey that came next was truly hard for us, and these blog posts were extremely difficult to write. Again, I can’t do justice capturing Yaseen’s struggle, or our emotions experiencing it. Trying to make my mind remember these moments, I force it to travel to a dark place. So, before I journey into dark

29 June 2021…Bone Marrow Transplant, Day 1. Yaseen, Mujeeb and I sat in the reception area of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit (BMTU), waiting for a nurse to usher Yaseen in. I can’t remember what I told him, but I imagine it must have been some words of encouragement. And that I loved him. I

If a test comes your way, it’s meant to change you. That’s what I believe. There was a version of me who existed before the test – before cancer came and stole my peace of mind – and there was a different version of me who exited the test on the other side. Most surely

It was 2010 and I was in my cabin on a cruise ship with the boys. Yaseen was around eight years old and Waseem around six, and both were extremely excited to be on such an adventure. I was excited too, but a little more wary, wondering how good an idea it was to be

If I ask you: “Will you thank Allah, the One who deserves all praise, when things are good?”. You’ll say: “Yes. of course”. And if I ask you: “Will you thank Him when things are bad, so terribly bad, that it hurts?”. Will you then say: “Yes”? “Of course”? It had been months of facing

“It is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts within the chest that are blind” – Qur’an 22:46. The days were hard. We had met with the haematologist assigned to handle Yaseen’s treatment, and it seemed like history was repeating itself. Once again, Mujeeb liked the doctor, and once again, I felt some

Never mind my chemotherapy plans of ‘just do it, get done with it and move on’. Allah SWT is Al-Lateef {Subtle and Kind} and Al-Lateef was about to derail my plans, send me on a detour, and teach me a valuable life lesson in the process. Subtly. Yaseen’s treatment started with a milder form of

What do you do when you hear that your child has cancer? Reflect on this for a few seconds. What do you do? Yaseen and I were sitting in the reception area of the doctor’s rooms while Mujeeb was trying to secure a parking spot. Sitting in the room of an oncologist, a cancer doctor,

I’m going to take you back to a day that I found to be significant. It was nearing the end of August and the day, surprisingly, was sunny and beautiful. A sharp contrast to my anxious mood as I made my way to the doctor’s office to hear the results of Yaseen’s biopsy. Place your

I believe in Allah (SWT). I believe in His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day (of Judgement). And I believe in Divine Decree – that the good and bad of it is from Allah SWT. This is important, because as a Muslim, I have to believe this. But it is also important

This is a blog I can’t possibly do justice to. Ask any parent who has lost a child to explain who exactly their child was, and I can’t imagine a single parent being able to. It seems like an injustice to even try and summarize the life that was Yaseen. Yet I feel it would

It was barely a month after I had left for Istanbul, chasing an exciting, new career, when I ended up back home, to the joy and surprise of my family. And I found myself lost – I had no job and no idea what I was going to do next. And then the guidance of

Istanbul, 2017 I decided I wanted to do something different with my life. I was tired of working in the legal field, and so I enrolled for a TEFL course to teach English as a foreign language. And then I decided it might be a good idea to teach in a foreign country to gain

‘I’m going to write your story’. Yaseen was sitting on the hospital bed after a treatment session when I made him the offer. Granted I’m not a brilliant writer, but I figured what I lacked in skills, his amazing story would make up for in content. At that moment I didn’t know that Allah (SWT)

All praise be to Allah, the Glorified, the Exalted. May the peace and blessings of Allah, the Most High, be upon our Prophet Muhammad. 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