IF LIFE WERE TO REMAIN STILL (PART TWO)

By Mahmood Adamu Imam

As my phone rang, I aimed shockingly to grab it and see for myself who was calling in such an irregular hour. It was some minutes after 3am. My instincts told me that something was amiss. 

All through the night I was shivering, awaiting the terror that lingers with the coming of daybreak. Leaving mom at about 11pm at the hospital, I was scared of what situation I would find her in the next morning.

But before then, for a yet unrealised reason, I insisted on calling dad. He needed to be aware of the recent transfer of mom to a special unit where patients require an uninterruptible access to oxygen, I concluded. He came and we served her well; my sister, I, my brother, Sa'ad, and father.

We all massaged her feet and palms in rounds as we waited for the exact time (9:05pm) of giving her food after the insulin injection (a medication given to diabetic patients when their sugar level is not stable).

We were all listening to the sound of the oxygen machine as mom smiled often, narrating what had happened - as though it was a regular matter - before dad and I got in. She explained boldly how she thought she would be in a comma when her breathing level dropped to fifty. "It is eighty now", she said in her attempt to calm us down. Her situation seemed critical, but her face refused to portray sorrow. I was amazed at her sick face. It was uniquely bright. It was cheerful. It was lively. The dull mood faded, until when, time to time, she pointed that her inhaler should be given to her.

Doctors rushed after every short while to check on her health. They were lenient with us - it was a special room and we were not supposed to crowd it, but we did, and they allowed it - probably for a foreseen reason. Maybe they suspected some inevitable fate. It was neither the asthma, nor the diabetics that was in their reach to cure. They were meant to help; but as such a time, they happened to be helpless.

Dad filled in the gaps of mom's fingers with his own fingers and assured her that all the suffering would become history. After all, it was all planned before we were born. And she was lucky to have a strong mind that regarded this divine test as a decree.

My sister, Na'ima, opened a bottle water and poured a small amount, as ordered by dad, so that he would say a prayer and let it be the first thing she would drink when it was time for her to be fed. Soon after, Na'ima (Pretty), poured out a half cup of plain sweetened milk in a cup that was held by me. I let her drink it bit by bit until the cup was empty. We together consoled her.

I recited to her some prayers and she repeated after me, in a notable slow voice. I never thought it would be the last time I would do that. I was relieved, especially when we recited together the best prayer for forgiveness. I intended to do that in the next morning to make her gain the forgiveness of Allah, as expressed by the Prophet to be effective as long as one recites at dust and passes away before daybreak and vice versa (Alas! the daybreak was to be out of her destined time). Lastly, I recited to her the 'Kalimatusshada'.

It will forever remain within my recollection the last wave she waved at me after several warnings to me, all through the day, to look after my health, and also, directed me to bring her clean and comfortable clothes she would wear in the next morning; but only to find out later that the clean and comfortable clothes were to be nothing but a white fabric with which she was dressed in to her grave.

I left the hospital only because I had no other option. It was our aunty, Lubabatu and Naima that were destined to witness mom's peaceful departure to the afterworld, answering the call of her Lord.

If life were to remain still, then she would have lived longer to see the return of her own child, whom she was to him a ladder, and to her a darling, dressed in the white Navy outfit, which she thought would fit him right. If only life were to remain still, then she would have lived longer to see what would become of us, her own, now bereaved, three children, Na'ima, Mahmood and Sa'ad.

IF LIFE WERE TO REMAIN STILL (PART ONE)

By Mahmood Adamu Imam

Often, we get absorbed into our daily activities until we become lost in them, and therefore, fail to remember certain calamities that are hidden, and for sure to explode, at some fated points of our lives. To almost all - including you, perhaps - an opportunity arrives only when it is destined to reach us, and hardly a thing that stays usually with us.

Only a few are blessed with the ability to realise proximate treasures they were endowed with. Vast majority believe that an opportunity is something far-fetched. I, myself, had being a usual upholder of this mediocre thought. But as the days passed, turning into years, I gave in to the idea, (thanks to the discretion that comes with age) and yes, with every certainty that opportunities don't seize to overflow towards us, at almost all the time of our existence, especially when we are safe and healthy.

Most of us see health as one valuable element of a peaceful living. Some see it as rather a gift and a significant opportunity. The few individuals with the latter perception are the ones either taught by wit or by one circumstance of life or the other.

They say experience is the best teacher. Who needs no other proof than myself, who is now staring at the ceiling of hospital traveling the world of thoughts from one edge to another? It frightens me to believe what rather seems like a nightmare. I'm scared to look down so as not let a tear drop and cause trouble. The place is not a peaceful one: the smell, the sound and the sight (in short, every aspect of it). If looking at the walls alone is terrifying, then what more of looking at my own mother lying on a bed, surrounded by sophisticated medical tools. Good health, indeed, is a gift. I remember that, in the past, life was not so still; but it never got worse the way it is now.

After every while of thinking, approximately every minute, I look at her face, renowned for its beauty, now darkened by illness, and recount the many many lingering dreams that were hung unquenched by countless twists of fate. She suffered not a small number of tests in her life yet never failed to recognise the essence of living. Apart from health, no other factor is so powerful to hinder her from making the most productive use of her time.

If life were to remain still, then she would have loaded quite a number of great achievements atop her already triumphant records; the records I will continue to unveil all through this unavoidable battle with disharmony.