The Book That is Written

Islam says that in the fourth month of fetal development the angels come down and a book is written for that child. In that book is their life, how long they will live, their hopes, dreams and all the life they will lead while their on earth. This is a book we all have but we will never see it or read it. It is written by the hand of Allah and his angels.

As a mother when we reach that month we know that is when we will hear their heartbeat for the first time and soon after we will feel the first of many kicks and jabs to come. We sit caressing our bellies and dream of the small body that awaits our arms. We dream of their life and how we will guide them.

When the doctors and nurses hand us that small child we are filled with an undying love for that child and we happily move forward in our lives with that new life forever part of ours.

Some books are long and full of many adventures, some are short and full of sorrow for those who will be left behind to wonder why so soon. We don't know why and no religion can ever tell a parent while you take a child before them. Why a child will suffer and die while a parent must move on without them.

Such is the book that today ends with the death of my son Suhayb ATaher Faris. Born on Oct 17, 1989 at 5:30 pm just as California was having one of the largest earthquakes on record.

My son and daughter Aieysha had just returned home from a trip to the doctors in Tripoli to schedule a surgery for her to get her gallbladder removed. He was saying he would go to work and let them know he might be out tomorrow as well as we had to come back again the next day for more labs and reviews of her medical condition.

He told me see you later and I told him after he got off work we would go and get meat for the next meal and then figure out some lunch.

No one ever tells you when the last page in your book is reached. He got not more than two miles from our house and his life was cut short. His book wrote its last paragraph.  The End is on the bottom of the page.

My son was heading into the round about at the ocean front and slowed to meet oncoming traffic is what I was told. A car didn't stop and rammed him and he lost control of the car and went over the median and into oncoming cars. I don't know much more yet. I haven't seen him. I won't for a few more days til my husband who I haven't seen in over 10 months comes and we bury our son. Just a few feet from where he died.

I am told that a man in the other car was torn apart by the impact. They told me I don't want to see my son. What mother does but cannot go without saying goodbye to her child. One who she nursed til young adult and was sitting just days ago planning a dream home with him that included land for him and his brother to build their homes and bring wives an children into our lives. There will be no wedding, no house, no grandchildren of my son. Only a memory in the faces and pictures and movies an memories we leave behind.

It is not the ones who die that suffer, It is the ones who are left behind who will feel the burden of this world. The young man who rammed his car, the family of the other man who lost his life as well. The many young men and family whose lives my son touched in his lifetime.

That is the sum of a life well lived is who is there to grieve when you have passed on and the thoughts and prayers that they offer for you and your family who will always have a missing part of them.

My son I can never hold you again, but you will always be with me. I love you.  Momma