Hope for the Broken of Heart

 

And just like that, month 1 of 2025 blipped by and we findourselves staring down the gauntlet that will hasten the coming of Ramadhaan.

As I type, I am several thousand feet in the air over theFairest of Capes, headed home after a brief spell in the Mother City. Alone.Just me.

Thinking myself clever, I booked a seat in the exit row.More leg room. For my restless legs to be restless in, forgetting that tall,wide guys, they choose this too. So seated next to me is just such a blokewhose elbow juts over the armrest into my hip.

It’s going to be a long bloody flight.

This mini holiday I scored came, courtesy of Read To Rise,who are the organizers of the Cape Flats Book Festival.

Gauging by attendance, this less than festive festival isthe weeskind of South African Book Fairs, which is a pity since it is amagnificent initiative. It feels like a thing of beauty struggling to take rootin an unforgiving environ. And if, from the efforts of the determined, warm,organisers of this laudable effort, a handful of less-than-privileged childrenare introduced to the Love of the Written word, then the near empty halls willhave all been worth it.

On a whim, I chose to stay the night in Cape Town. My firsttrip away as a newly divorced female in a man’s world, (if this guy’s widelysplayed legs and arms akimbo stance are anything to go by.)

Read: he turned me into a creeper, climbing my small wall ofthe plane wishing I were out there, on the wing, instead of being made queasyby the armpit warmth of a stranger.

The land below is a faded dusk-coloured canvas of etchedlines and shrouded ridges. Whilst my ears

pop, the ombre washed rainbow ribbonof dusk stretches across the sky next to me. Fading. Fading. Bowing eventuallyto a perfect lilac.

My Lord, You have not created this in vain, glory be toThee. I think. By my heart stays silent.

Somewhere down there, a muazzin is calling the faithful to prayer. My mind bows in submission. My heart is still silent.  And as much as this weighty plane soars, with seemingly little effort towardJoburg and its workaday problem and I take in this much wonder which imbues mysoul with thankfulness, my heart is a heavy, broken thing.

The world has been bleached of joy these last months. Emptiedof the wonder it once filled me with. Because my child, soul of my soul, hasopted for a path so dark, I cannot, with any degree of integrity, join her onit. And so I have had to teach my heart to let go. And each day, I do so. A little more. Fewer tears. 

Funny how you never think these things can happen to you...

And then they do.

And your world is unmade.

And the sky comes tumbling down. And the ground beneath youis mere mush and you're crawling your way through the mundane of every day.Barely, just barely staying above it all.

The heart can break a thousand times, but still, itbeats 100 000 times each day we live. Subhanallah.

Image credit: vector_corp on Freepik


To all parents out there, being tested through theirchildren, being made to seek Jannah through trials inflicted on them by thevery beings for whom they sacrificed their entire lives, my duas are with you.May the Almighty make whole your broken hearts, fill them with joy once more.Bring you peace and acceptance. And above all, an unshakable Faith.

May we meet someday, those of us who were tested thus, in the lengthy shade of the trees of Jannah.And there, to the lilting music of its rustling leaves, may our laughter rise tothe Almighty. We will laugh and laugh, you and I, at the pain, the heartbreak,the suffering. Because the very things that tried to break us, brought us here.Our tears will be the ocean that carries us to Allah’s pleasure. Aameen