Ramadhan Muslim [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3: What is Love?

"Once you begin to see everything beautiful as only a reflection of God's beauty, you will learn to love in the right way; for His sake. Everything and everyone you love will be for, through and because of Him. The foundation of such love is God. So what you hold onto will no longer be an unstable feeling, a fleeting emotion. And what you chase will no longer be just a temporary high. What you hold, what you chase, what you love, will be God: the only thing stable and constant. Thereafter, everything else will be through Him. Everything you give or take or love or don't love, will be by Him. Not by your nafs. It will be for Him. Not for your nafs."
Page 57, Reclaim Your Heart by Yasmin Mogahed.

Farra's monologue

I set my colourful bookmark, embossed in golden flowers in page 57 of the book Reclaim Your Heart. For some reasons, my heart felt lighter, as if a giant boulder was lifted off my chest. Yasmin's beautiful words shone a bright, shiny light into the cavity of my chest. Perhaps I was frantically running in a dark, cold and clammy tunnel. Afrer all these years, glimmers of light is pouring in to the tunnel. Although I see no entrance nor exit, this light is a source of hope. A source of love.

All these years, my heart yearned for love. If love was beyond seven mountains, I would trek each mountain with a smile on my face. If love was the hidden in the ice glaciers of the Arctic, I would set off by foot without a moment of thought. If love is hidd seven feet beneath the ground, I would die to reunite with love.

As a child, I never knew what love was. My father, Zuhri Said realised he was not at all compatible with my mother, Roshni Selvan. And that is, whilst I was a five year old. The sky came crushing on to my family, lraving it in shambles. My mother took custody of me while my dad took off.

The thing is, my mother put up a brave front, bracing through the divorce. However, she was completely torn on the inside. She lost her chirpy, jovial self to the divorce and immersed herself in work. All the while, she ignored me. She grew to be one of the most sought-after lawyers in the country. She worked her way up the corporate ladder. She was indeed the best lawyer in the country.

She may have been the best lawyer, but she is not at all a good mother.

She used her job, her career as a way to forget her painful past. And she considered me to be a part of her painful past. A piece left behind by my father. Someone who still reminds her of her dark days.

As such, she neglected me. Completely. As though I was not her child at all. Not once, after the divorce, did she feed me whilst my stomach grumbled in hunger. Not once did she nurse me to good health while my body ailed. Not once did she wash my clothes, or asked me about my day. Nothing. It was as if my existence did not mean a thing to her.

Few years ago.
"Kak Lia."

"Yes madam."

"Have you finished cleaning the dishes? Did you sweep the floor? Did you clean up my cupboard?"

"Yes madam, I have finished everything."

"Remember, I am paying you, not just to be the housekeeper, but also to take care of that girl."

"Okay madam."

"Take care of everything to do with the girl. Her food, clothes, everything okay."

"I definitely would madam."

"Good then."

"But madam, I have one question to ask."

"Yes?"

"I have never seen you talking to your own child. And she is only a five year- old. Even if she were to come to you, expecting your hug and love, you push her away. I know I might be poking my nose into your personal issue, but why do you treat her that way?"

My mother eyed me, her eyes spewing hatred.

"She is a resemblance of her father, Lia. And I hate her father. I want to forget every detail her father left in my life. And she is a pile of mess I can't get rid off."

Although the five year-old me did not quite understand the intensity of her words, I understood the intensity of her hatred. Her words stuck with me, till this day. The days I drench my pillow, in my unsuccessful pursuit for the love of a mother, are well preserved in between the scars of my heart. My yearning for true love had always met dead end.

Present Days.

Now, the tables had turned. I am trying my best to rewire my brain to accept a new definition of love. A love which is like no other.

"This means you will love what He loves and not love what He does not love. And when you do love, you will give to the creation-not for what you can get in return from them. You will love and you will give, but you will be sufficed by H. And the one, who is sufficed by God, is the richest and most generous lf all lovers. Your love will be by Him, for Him and because of Him. That is the liberation of the self from servitude to any created thing. And that is freedom. That is happiness.

That is love."

I closed the book in exasperation and set the book on my wooden side table.  I could hear the voice of my heart booming across the walls of my heart, partly confused, partly relieved.

"Does that mean I will finally find true love?"

"Will my broken pieces stick together? Will I become, and feel complete again?

"The love of humans was what I had been chasing all this while. Was I chasing a mirage?

"Perhaps only time could answer my questions," I told myself, while forcing my eyes shut and beckoning my body to sleep.

P.s. Assalamualaikum readers!!! I am very, very sorry for updating after such a long gap. My mental health had been terrible for the past days and I could not muster the courage to write. Make dua for me and I will keep all of you in my duas too💗💗💗