A Match Made In Jannah

Chapter 5

I swallowed hard and allowed myself to free fall onto my bed. It had been a long time since I'd felt like this, so languid and broken. The realisation had struck me with such force that nothing, not even food could comfort me. I had tried to lock myself up in my room the whole day, but my mother wanted me to assist in the kitchen and be more active, which honestly only depressed me further. Restraining the tears in front of her made me choke silently, and as soon as I set foot in my room they would spill, violently, with no limits. Sometimes I would cry for hours, other times I would just lie there motionless, unable to comprehend what the feeling that kept me from living was.

Truth be told, I had expected this, somewhere at the back of my mind. More so, I had been warned by a much wiser friend of mine, and it annoyed me that I had not listened. Her words rang in my head:

What will happen if things don't turn out the way you want it to. Husna, try to realise how one sided this love is! You aren't making yourself happy, you just think you are. But when you're old and you have this plan in mind, but he doesn't come, what will you do? When you do things like this you're just going to end up depressed. Think about all the other possibilities... He could get married before you. He could not get married. And think about Taqdeer. What if he dies before you? What if YOU die? Don't create false hope. You're only hurting yourself.

Had I been hurting myself all these years? It seemed so difficult to imagine life without Zaid in my head and heart. Over the years he had become my hope, my inspiration and my role model. To look up to senior Ulama is of much value, but to have someone who is still young and experiences the Fitnahs of this age in the same way you do is helpful, to say the least. An example of reformation and of Islamic youth, I had slowly begun to reform myself based on him. Could I have just followed the role model if our Prophet (saw) or the Ulama?

I had built up an image of a perfect life with Zaid. I hadn't envisioned any other life. Not academically or even maritally. Sure, I understood that marriages all had arguments and fights, but I had been preparing for that for somewhat five years now. To have that taken away from me was heartbreaking. I had built my entire life based on an impossible want, assuming it was my destiny. Dua could change some Taqdeer, but maybe this was clearly predestined. Tahajjud duas nor begging to Allah in both darkness and light could change His will. I would learn to accept it.

But not now. It was too soon. Way too soon.