This is all about a good friend of mine. She was sick but I wasn’t aware. She was wretched but I didn’t realise. For a year or so it had been going on, thus a year of not-noticing. We were close by geography but distant by empathy. Had I been a failure I wonder?
She was greatly suffering inside but I wasn’t there to extend my hand. She was purely in unexplainable pain but I wasn’t there to offer a shoulder to cry on. She never seemed grumpy, that cheerful face she put on display to spread joy to other people failed to give me a mere clue what was it hidden beneath those smiles of hers. The glee and laughter we had together, never an inch ignited in me that she was actually disguising something thorny which was growing in her heart. Like rapidly. Some unknown prickly, barbed thing even she couldn’t figure out what it was. That its sharp edges nearly tore her entire soul open, breaking everything into minute pieces. She was indeed enduring a hurtful period of time which she on her own struggled to survive, not letting herself from drowning into a sea called ‘wisdom’. Even when the course of water was robustly yanking her legs towards the dark seabed. Hard.
She has always been truthful when talking. The sincerity that glimmers as she speaks is so apparent which I really admire. I therefore learnt to naively think that what she exhibited must have been what she really felt inside, nothing else and nothing left. Yet in reality, I now realise that that theory isn’t always applicable in all setting. Some things would just dangerously go unnoticed when we fail to take a break and look back at them very carefully.
It was a raw surprise to decipher the actual fact when she at last told me what she had been going through. It surprised me more knowing what phase she has developed into. For God’s sake. Though I didn’t show my reaction for fearing that that would freak her out unnecessarily.
It devastatingly sparked in me the questions, had I been a lousy friend, too ignorant and selfish to even spare a moment to give a pat on her back asking if everything was alright? It agonized me more to speculate could things have not happened if I extended my helping hand just a bit sooner? Astaghfirullah. Indeed, He knows everything better than we do. He really does.
To you sister, I’m sorry. Really am.
For not being there when you needed someone to talk to.
For not being there when you needed someone to talk to.
******
I’m totally not blaming the fate that has taken place, in which I had overlooked something really important which could’ve been within my reach- my friend’s desolation and despair. I thank Allah that I've learnt a valuable lesson where things don’t always mean what they seem to be. I now realise that the roles of a friend aren’t limited to just what the cliché has been described all along. When you’re happy, you smile and when you’re sad, you cry. That kind of ideal hypothesis doesn’t always apply to everything, for a true friend would’ve achieved beyond to only knowing that.
For the friend whom this whole entry is all about, I apologise for having overlooked your suffering. I feel bad thinking if I had been an awful friend but I hope it’s not too late to contribute with whatever I have. My support and dua are always with you. I know you’re strong I have faith in you. You’ll overcome this with time, with His Blessings insyaAllah. Again it isn’t a piece of cake for you to move on swiftly I understand but I want you to know that I’ll be by your side as we go along, as far as I could insyaAllah.
May Allah grant you with strength and power in your everyday steps and I want to see you back into your glowing state in and out, and wean off those TCAs for good. Because Muslim friends should care about each other. And I care about you.
Bukhari and Muslim with a chain up to Anas(s) who related that the Prophet(pbuh) said this;
"No one truly believes until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself."
