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 be a greater injustice to exclude this part completely.
Allah SWT gifted my son with unique attributes, many of which I didn’t fully appreciate until the time of his illness. There’s so much to say and these few short lines are inadequate, my vocabulary is inadequate, in trying to convey the laughter and the character and the life that was Yaseen, I’m inadequate.
But I’m trusting the readers to see past these inadequacies, and just appreciate a glimpse into my son’s unique personality and beautiful soul.
“My Lord, expand for me my chest [with assurance], and ease my task for me, and loosen a knot from my tongue, so they may understand what I say. [Translation of Qur’an, 20:25 -28]
The early days…
Yaseen was our first child, and the first grandchild on both sides of the family. So he entered this world amidst much excitement, and a bit unexpectedly, when he made his appearance almost three weeks early.
Mujeeb and I had the happy task of deciding on a name, and so we put together a list of names that we both liked, hoping to agree on one that was our favourite.
But on the morning that his name was to be given, a name popped into my mind and I decided to add it to the list. ‘Yaseen’ – the name of a chapter in the Qur’an, referred to as the heart of the Qur’an.
This name stole our hearts, as surely as did our child who came to wield it.
Yaseen was loved by all, and very much spoilt by his grandparents, especially my dad. He was the first male born into my family – which consisted of my dad, my mom and us five daughters – so the male bonding between my dad and Yaseen was completely understandable.
And then we were blessed once again. Yaseen was two years and two months old when his brother Waseem was born. And instantly, Yaseen gained another family member who would, despite the usual brotherly scuffles, adore him.
Life with the boys was good and the boys were happy. But my relationship with Mujeeb was taking strain. And by the time Yaseen turned five and Waseem turned three, Mujeeb and I made the decision to divorce. I’m eternally grateful to Allah SWT that our divorce was an amicable one, and we had managed to part with goodness.
I automatically assumed the role of primary parent, with Mujeeb continuing to play a good supportive role. We made it known to the boys that we were parenting in tandem, and there’d be no opportunity for them to use one parent against the other. Mujeeb and I learnt to compromise, to agree-to-disagree, to move past major disagreements quicker and avoid grudges for the sake of our boys.
Yaseen and Waseem adapted relatively well to this new family paradigm. And years later, when Mujeeb remarried and his wife, Shubnum, took on the role of second mom, they managed to adapt really well to that new paradigm. She was fond of the boys and they were fond of her, so this made it easier for me to be fond of her too.
I wish I could say being a single mom was easy, and I wish I could say I was an amazing parent. But the truth is, it was challenging. I usually performed somewhere on a spectrum between being a great mom, a mom that was just managing to keep things together, and even dropping down to the mom who got it wrong. I was, very simply, the mom who was learning how to be a mom as she went along.
The boys, as they grew up, were typical boys – energetic, happy and somewhat mischievous. They were ingenious at testing my patience, and punishment was something that was, against my better judgment, frequently meted out.
I tried it all, from the ‘I’m counting to three’ to the ‘naughty corner’ and even the infamous ‘wooden spoon’. (I say wooden spoon, but it was pretty much any weapon of choice that was close and I could get my hands on.)
It’s debatable whether the wooden spoon method ultimately served as a punishment for them or for me though. They usually spied me coming for them and ran away, circling around the diningroom table as I gave chase, armed with the weapon of the day. And after a good few rounds of catch-me-if-you-can, the only positives I imagine was that the boys had a good laugh and I had a bit of a workout.
Yaseen…
Even as a young boy, Yaseen had a tendency toward optimism.
A day comes to mind when he had just started schooling, and he came home after sports practice and informed me that he’d come second in a sprint race. Proudly, I asked him how many kids had participated in it. He responded – two.
What a sense of humour! What a memory! Well, the memory pertained mostly to his uncanny ability to recall things that happened many years ago right down to the nitty-gritty details. Yet, ask him about a subject he’d studied an hour ago, and his memory seemed a bit more evasive.
He was ever-ready to give a speech at someone’s birthday celebration, or put on a show in front of an audience, and it was hard not to love his extrovert nature. Fun-loving, a sports enthusiast, a much-in-demand goalkeeper for soccer matches and a master gamer – Yaseen was it all.
It’s amazing how the years passed by without me even realizing, and the boys were suddenly grown up.
Yaseen had matured and transformed most amazingly from this argumentative young boy into a sensible, mild-tempered, respectful young man. He was the calm in the storm (the storm being myself and Waseem who both wielded quite a temper), and he was able to diffuse most hot-headed situations that unfolded in our household with his cool temperament.
I think though, of everything that he was, he perhaps bore the title of ‘big brother’ the best. A big brother not only to his brother but to his cousins too. And the relationship that they shared was proof of how much they loved him.
As amazing as his personality was, if anyone had to ask me what role I had in shaping Yaseen’s personality, I’m afraid I would say very little. We had very similar interests, but very different personalities. We both preferred books to movies, we loved trying different foods, travelling, and we both could argue a point well.
But while my personality led me to continue arguing, Yaseen had developed the ability to drop an argument for the sake of peace. How I wish I could emulate him in this respect!
I’ve understood now, in hindsight, that Yaseen’s unique personality was a blessing from Allah SWT. A true gift, as the test that was about to land on our shoulders would pull on the beautiful, tolerant, resilience of his character, as much as the impatience of my own.