She died.
I still miss her. So much.
She was the mother of my best friend, years ago, yet loving her never felt borrowed or secondhand. She was kind in the way that didn’t announce itself, honest without cruelty, generous without counting. She was the first person who made me believe that your best friend’s mother could slowly, become your own too, indirectly. Not by force, not by title, but by presence, by warmth, by choosing you.
I was in Primary 3 when my best friend and I met. Two children from different tribes, different states, different homes, yet held together by one unshakeable thread: the same dīn. You know that joy children carry home, breathless and bright, when they tell their parents about a new friend; the kind of joy adults smile at, knowing most friendships fade not long after, but this one didn’t. Days turned to months, months to years, and still we remained inseparable. That constancy stirred curiosity. Before then, a mother wants to know who makes her child this happy, why this name keeps returning, why this bond refuses to loosen. So she took a step forward, and perhaps my own mother did too, I can’t remember clearly now, but I remember what followed.
From that single step grew something rare. Fathers befriended fathers. Mothers leaned into mothers. Siblings blurred into one another. Two homes softened into one extended family, stitched together by trust and shared meals and laughter that lingered long after the day had ended. We'd spend time together with her after school, all of us playing round her car, whilst she wrote her post graduate project, until my parents came to pick us. Or how my bestie and her sisters would follow us home till late evening and we'd almost do a sleep over, until their parents would show up to pick them. Memories kaiii. May Allah bless her mother endlessly; she was truly a pillar among us. A bridge, a heart that pulled everyone closer. Oh, how deeply I miss her.
Time passed as it always does, gently, without asking permission. We grew even when classes separated us, we remained close, still one family in spirit. We did not know then that Allah, in His infinite wisdom, had written something far heavier than we could imagine.
“Wa ‘asā an takrahū shay’an wa huwa khayrun lakum; wa ‘asā an tuḥibbū shay’an wa huwa sharrun lakum. Wallāhu ya‘lamu wa antum lā ta‘lamūn” — “Perhaps you dislike a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not know” (Qur’ān 2:216).
She fell ill. Ahh, omo. It was alottt. The adults spoke in careful fragments, shielding us children from the full weight of it. I cannot remember how often we saw her after that, maybe once. When we finally had the first and last opportunity before she went back to Allah, that day, she looked drained, as though life itself had been quietly sipping from her. The once chubby, lively, ever-smiling woman I knew had been thinned by pain.
I never asked what the illness was. Even now, I still haven’t. Some details feel too sacred, too heavy, to disturb. Ahh, subhānnallah. I can still remember how heavy it hit me after school, then I was in my 2nd year in junior secondary school. At the masjid, a co-family friend of theirs told me, “xxx mother is dead, she died today." Ehh? Ahh? Why? How? Where? My head scattered, I was dumbfounded, tabula rasa-’red’. It was a lot to carry, a lot to digest after a freaking tiring day.
She hadn't watched us grow yet, she hadn't seen us become bigger girls and boys, she hadn’t. Perhaps she'd not have survived the time that would have followed either, Allah knows best indeed! Years pasttt, I held onto the gift she gave me on my 10th birthday. It stayed with me through growth and change, through seasons of forgetting and remembering. Until last year, when I finally had to accept that it had worn out completely, and I let it go, not without tears sha. Some things leave our hands but never leave our hearts.
Her death hurt, it still does. But still, we say Alḥamdulillāh, for real. I lost my best friend’s mother. I lost my best friend too; time turned us into acquaintances, and even that, I accept with gratitude. She lost far more: her mother, her confidant, her woman, a part of herself that can never be replaced. Both families lost the bond that once held us so tightly. Her mother was the engine of that closeness, the gentle force that kept us showing up for one another, along with my mum. Their father, may Allah bless him, was a busy man, and after her death, life shifted. They moved places, they moved on, we had no choice, we moved too. Distance crept in, the way it often does after loss.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “When a person dies, all his deeds end except three: ongoing charity, beneficial knowledge, or a righteous child who prays for him” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 1631).
I pray she continues to receive the reward of every kindness she planted in us, every bond she nurtured, every heart she softened. She raised love that outlived her, and that is no small legacy. Sometimes I feel bad. I still do. Grief doesn’t ask permission to return; it simply shows up, unannounced. But grief also teaches. It taught me to make du‘ā’ like this: may Allah grant you a spouse who loves bonds the way you do, who understands effort, who honours friendship, who treats relationships as trusts, not conveniences. Someone who believes in your dreams and guards them gently, just as you would theirs, even after you're gone.
I miss her. I imagine sometimes what it would have been like if Allah had written a longer path for us together, how far we might have grown, side by side. But Allah plans best. Always.
“Innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rāji‘ūn” — “Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we shall return” (Qur’ān 2:156).
So I ask you,I beg you, gently, please make du‘ā’ for her alongside all who you make du'ā for. May Allah fill her grave with light, expand it for her as far as the eye can see, make it a garden from the gardens of Jannah. May He forgive her shortcomings, reward her goodness, and reunite her with those she loved under His mercy. Āmīn, thumma āmīnnn.
Some people leave this world, but they never really leave us. They become part of our du‘ā’, our memories, our becoming. Some how, someway, that is Allah’s mercy too.
May we return to Allah when we have good deeds to be glad about, good children, good memories to be grateful for. By His mercy, alone.
Amin.