Road to Jannah

Chapter Twelve • Never Alone

May the angels protect you, trouble neglect you, and heaven accept you when it's time to go home. May you always have plenty, your glass never empty, and know in your belly, you're never alone.

May your tears come from laughing, find friends worth having, with every year passing, they mean more than gold. May you win but stay humble, smile more than grumble, and know when you stumble, you're never alone.

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~ J A N N A H ~

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I remember the first time I had seen Maryam faint was when we were in Primary 3, it was during a French class and I had thought she was just sleeping out the boredom only for my nine year old self to be petrified to death when I kept nudging her but she didn't wake up.

That incident had repeated itself multiple times but with every time, I was none the less scared. Maryam always behaved like she was fine, she never ever wanted anyone to know she was a sickler since from our secondary school days, when everyone knew, she practically became an outcast. People weren't comfortable hanging out with her since her state was unpredictable. In a mean girl's words, Laila's in particular, she straight out told Maryam that she didn't want her "dying" on them so that's why they weren't interested in her friendship.

Maryam could have been a social butterfly, she had the looks, she had the attractive personality, she had the attitude but those words, those words made her cave in on herself and throughout Secondary School, it became only me and her though she was still a step a higher than me on the popularity ladder.

She enjoyed socializing and was an extrovert as well as a very talkative person but thanks to people's shallow thinking, she didn't get as many friends as she'd wanted and thanks to her health, she didn't get to go to as many places and do the things she wanted.

I remember how the only time she'd let herself cry over her fate and curse at it was when we had just graduated secondary school and were getting ready for university. She had applied for Medicine and her excellent grades had earned her the admission but it was that very year that the university decided to enlarge their Department of Medicine and move it from inside its temprorary site in the university to a place in the outskirts of the city where they built it it's permanent site close to its teaching hospital.

For Maryam, that simple change was what had cost her dreams and forced her to change her aspirations. She couldn't make the journey of three hours everyday just to get to campus and three hours to come back from it and living in the hostel wasn't an option. Her health always had to be kept on check, she had to go for her kidney dialysis, so a machine had to be near, she had to undergo multiple tests at the same time and kept under constant observation and unless she was going to move with her whole family to where the Department of Medicine was, none of that was going to be possible. So that dream of hers of becoming a doctor, along with many others, had been ruined just because she had Sickle Cell Anaemia.

As I think back to all of that now, I can't help the tears that had welled up in my eyes and let them just roll down my cheeks hoping that then, my heavy heart will lighten, that this strange foreboding I've been having over these two days will empty out with the tears.

"Madam!" Maryam shook me a little, making me open my eyes and turn towards her. "Why are you always looking for excuses to cry? You practicing for a crying competition or what?"

I shook my head and wiped the tears away with my sleeves. I looked at her and gave her a wide smile before resting my head on her shoulder. We were both snuggled in her bed with our backs pressed on the headboard and our legs outstretched before us, under the covers. We had been watching TV since I arrived at her house at around 7 am and it was now almost 4 in the evening.