there she went....

three weeks ago today passed away my dadi, jamrunessa choudhury,i only learnt what her name was a few months ago to me she was just my dadi. Sometimes it feels like so long ago when i sat by her bed knowing i was witnessing her last moments in this dunya, and at times i still cant believe it happened.

my dadi was not your average gran, for starters her sari never manged to sit the way it was supposed to, her hijab within minutes of putting it on managed to turn upside down with the safety pin hovering somewhere near her eyes! she would give us ice cream for breakfast whenever my mum wasnt there, walk us to the corner shop everyday for sweets or the beach! and instead of greeting us with the traditinal asalamu alaykum you hear from most old people we got ' hi !' and a big toothless grin.

she was so so beautiful, apparently my dada fell madly in love with her the moment he set eyes on her, i still dont get the union. my dada was the bengali version of amita bachan!handsom tall elegant and so so smart. you would never see a crease in his clothes or a single strand of hair misplaced on his head. my dadi was the exact opposite her whole life. her hair coming out all over the place, upside down hijab and second hand clothes, no matter how much money she was given!

she had a dream, she wanted to see the hollywood sign, we took her to america and she walked faster and futher than any of us, and she got to see her beloved hollywood sign, did she even know what it was??but that was my dadi, no fear, adventurous and full of energy especially when it came to her grandchildren. she was never to tired to jump up and down wiht us while doing zikr, she sang nusery rhyms with the younger kids, her own version of 'wind the bobbin'

and then she was admitted to hospitcal on the evening of the 31st July suffering from a heart attack. who would have guessed, the weeks leading up to the heart attack she was walking between my house and my anuty's 2-3 times a day, playing with her great grand daughter, laughing and talking. on the day of her heart attack i found her climbing the furniture so she could undo the top lock on our conservatory door. even after the attack in the hospital she was fine! you couldnt even tell she was ill. the other patients complaing coz she was singing in the night! she always did that made up songs about whatever she was thinking.

subhanAllah!she died at 9:40 on September the 7th leaving her whole family in shock. i sat by her bedside, by beloved beauitful happy dadi, repeating the shahada over and over again in her ear, and every now and then slipping in the words i loved to tell her 'i love you dadi'. and in her left ear my hufu reciting yasine with such a melody. both of us doing our best not to break down, we couldnt let her down not when she needed us most.

then came the janzah ghusl, we needed to prepare her for her meeting with her Lord. as a child i use to make my dadi promise she would be the one who would do my makeup and hair on my wedding day, instead i got to dress her on her final day. i just make dua to Allah that we did it o.k.

then came the day of the janaza, when they took her away, when i watched my dad, my uncles and my brothers carry their beloved from her home for the final time. watching them doing what i knew i could never do, tears straming down their faces. After the burial my 7 year old ever so shy cousin recited yasine over her. the choudhury clan, we're all loud and boisterous, not yusuf he's so quiet and shy, but Allah gave him the strength that day to recite infront of hundreds for the sake of his nani. and then...they left her there. there where someday we will all go. and if we're lucky like my dadi we'll have all our children and grandchildren around us reciting the most perfect words of la ilaha illallah.

now my dad has no parents and i have no paternal grandparents, but inshAllah they have Allah. and the Most Merciful has granted them mercy, He has widened their graves filled it with noor, and given them a window to jannah, for He is Ar-Rahman and Ar-Raheem.Ameen