Road to Jannah

Epilogue • Without You

So here's what it feels like to be lonely, and no I'm not afraid to know I will be okay without you. And now I'm far from home, and I'm not sure where to go, I never wanted to hurt you, but you wanted to hurt me, and then you left me in the cold.

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~ K U L T H U M ~

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I smooth the folded envelope and open it, noticing how three years of perusing had worn out the edges of the paper and left them tattered. Three years and this letter remains yet to be read by it's recipient despite him living in the very next room and despite him being my own son.

My eyes scan through the words I had penned on that day my Ahmadina had come back home to me in a state I never thought I would see him in, drunk and reeking of liquor and as I look down on the paper, I could still feel the pen in my hand and the words being brought to life as they danced on its tip.

I sigh looking over the words again and with a heavy heart, I let myself read them in my innermost mind, adopting a surreptitious manner even if I were in the company of no one but the walls around me.

Dear Ahmadinajad,

Only Allah knows for how long I've been wanting to tell you this, for how long I've wanted to face you with no guilt weighing my heart, but habibi, I've never been able to muster enough courage to do that.

I love you too much to bare the thought of ever losing you, to bare the thought of something ever coming between us and making you despise me. But now, I can no longer be selfish and continue stalling such a truth from you. And whether I'm the victim or the culprit and villain of what I'm about to tell you, I leave you to be the judge and trust that you'll make the right decision.

I only hope and pray that whatever you decide, I will still have even if it be a tiny space in your heart. I pray that the only person that I have loved all my life and fought for and will continue to fight for till I die, doesn't turn to hating me.

I don't know if you remember that morning your father didn't wake up, you were the one that found him unmoving and with something dried and foamy on his lips. If only back then we'd been wiser, you would have understood that that was the of poison and you would have understood the only person that could have poisoned him was me.

I just couldn't handle it anymore. He could have continued hurting me till eternity and I wouldn't complain but I couldn't bare seeing him hurt my only son every single day, to ruin his life bit by bit. So I did the one thing I will always know is wrong but I will never ever regret in my life. I killed him.

I had no other choice habibi, there was nothing else I could do to save you from him so I took his life. Ammi, if you're reading this to my son, yes, I took the life of my own husband and for that, your decision to disown me has never proven to be so right.

I chose my Ahmadina over you and Abbi a long time ago and made you disown me . Ahmadi, the reason I can't go back is because my whole family has abandoned me after I chose you over them. Yes, I chose you over them.

They figured out your father's behaviors towards me in that same year your father moved us from Australia to Nigeria. They had intervened and my parents wanted to take me away from your father, they wanted me to come back to Egypt with them instead but I didn't. I didn't because they had wanted to separate me not only from your father, but from you too. Your father would never have allowed me to leave with you and so he gave me a choice, it was either I leave alone or I stay together with him, with you.