The death of my mother

The death of my mother

"if I thought my answer were given to anyone who would ever return to the world ,this flame would stand still without moving any further.........." Dante Alighieri. . Divine comedy

It was 1989. Life in Sudan my country was running amok politically and economically.
In spite of my deep love for my country, my family and my friends, I decided to abandon it to live in another country. I fled to Libya. There I was working as the art teacher for a girls training institute. I rented a small room and tried to adapt my self to my new life.
My room was furnished with a gray sheeted bed , four antique chairs , a square middle size table, some books and papers scattered on the floor close to the wall . Besides that in the corner of my room, laid my solace string instrument, I used to play it to soliloquize my solitude and loneliness and comfort myself when I was completely nostalgic and overwhelmed by remembrance of my family and my friends. Their remembrance whistling and drumming in my ears day and night since I have left them. In another corner was my small teapot boiling on red gleaming coal.
That day, my window was half-open. A cool blast of wind came from time to time carried smell of grass and animal’s midden from a pound nearby. The smell muzzled my nose and increased my gloomy mood. I pulled my bag, took my album from it and returned it under the table. I laid my back on a chair and began to check the album so as to change my mood. The first page held my mother’s photo in her traditional clothes with her quiet smile. She looked tired and weary. I concentrated on her face for a while and remembered my childhood, how she was always worried and anxious when I was sick or absent from home. I remembered her advices when I made a mistakes or did something wrong. She was always very gentle and helpful and all our neighbors loved her attitude and her manner.
I closed the page with the sound of wind out side .I looked through the window. It was raining. It seemed to be a rainstorm. I checked the door carefully. Then I took my chair near the window. No long the weather was turned badly. Thunder rolling heavily and lights licking the clouds. Water everywhere painted the ground with a white color. The telephone, electric poles, and the trees looked like drunk dancers struggling hard to keep their vertical position.
It was Friday 1994, five o’clock in the after noon. I remember it exactly just like yesterday, and I had my experience and bad memories with day like it; my family’s five rooms had been ruined by rain on a similar day, my friend fell down on his neck and died in a car accident, I had lost my valuable art work on a rainy day like this day and much more.
While I was sitting on the chair near the window, the moments seemed to me like a blind worm dragging itself to unknown place. I imagined a lot of things. Sometimes we have strange feelings , you can name it ; intuition , prediction , imagination , or six sense . These feelings sometimes may come true and give us the reality and the truth of life.
I touched my head, passed my hand back down to my neck like I forgot something. I felt hungry. I remembered that I didn’t eat for five hours. I grabbed a half brown bread filled with cheese from the table along with a cup of tea and returned to my chair near the window.
Before I got ready to bite the bread something drew my attention to the wall front of me. I saw spider pursuing a big ant. The ant dragging its body some inches front of the spider. While I was watching this scene, the phrase '' Survival of the fittest " crossed mind. I also remembered my mother. She used to tell me stories and riddles about animals insects and other creatures when I was a child.
The rain was on its way to stopping except the sound of thunder still rumbling far distance and heavy dark clouds seemed ready to flow again on the wet brick houses.
I returned to continue eating my bread. While I was doing that a sudden unexpected noisy knocks at the door broke my silence and turned my attention to a suspicious question!!
“Who is it? " I whispered to myself.
I didn’t expect any one to visit me this time.
I went quietly to the door. I stopped before it for few seconds. I heard the voice pronounce my name. I recognized him. He was one of my friends. I opened the door. He entered in. Like a bird, he shook him self to shake off the water from his wet clothes. He sat down on a chair close to the table. I handed him a little towel to dry his head and his face. I prepared a cup of tea and put it on the table before him. He looked anxious and confused. His face looked sorrowful while he bent it down as he was looking for reason to speak.
It was a critical moment "something happened” I told myself secretly. I realized that in his eyes. He cracked his knuckles, and then he opened his mouth with a little huskiness in his voice;
" I got bad news from my brother yesterday " He continued in a low voice "your mother passed away last week.... I am sorry...I am sorry..."
I couldn’t realize the rest of his words and how many time he repeated them. His voice faded away like an echo and returned to my ears as reverberation of a crack in the sky, the room turned dark and dismal, the chair, the table, the wall, even him looked like a ghost sitting front of me. I didn’t aware how long passed until I felt his hand on my shoulder with his sympathetic words “Be patient.. We are all guests in this life... one day, we will go. We have to be patient and accept our destiny. Your mother had done her role and passed away, death is our fate.. When it comes, no one can stop it..."
His words mixed with my long tape of memories and pain. Her face came to me with her sad eyes, her quiet voice and generous smile. She was forty-five year old when I left her. A skinny woman with two scars on both sides of her face as a traditional signs of beauty. She was very brave, forgiving and helpful. She spent her valuable life for the family and other people. I remembered her last letter in which she asked me to come back to home. How sad were her words, and how they still touch my heart and ringing in my ears. How sad and painful to lose a dear person like a mother, and how the life was empty without her.
A after few hours, my friend left. I closed my door and the window. Felling tired and exhausted of thinking and sadness, I laid on my bed and tried to convince myself. We are human being and we don’t have promise or guarantee for life to be lasting or eternal. We are supposed to accept it and continue on our way in spite of its ugly face.

Awad Sheikh Idreis Hassan
Arizona State University
23/3/2007

Brother Awad

May her soul rests in heaven
It is just life, God who gives, takes
I hope you sorrows are now comforted
What you have experienced is pretty tough, may Allah bless you

Regards
Firdouse

Dear Firedouse

Thanks for your sharing this sad event
Thank you for your kind and sympathetic words

with my regards
Awad

Quote: We are human being and we don’t have promise or guarantee for life to be lasting or eternal. We are supposed to accept it and continue on our way in spite of its ugly face.

جميل... جميل يا عوض

شكرا على الحكمة البالغة

ما اقسي خبر فراق احباءنا للحياه خاصة ونحن في الغربهّ!

احببت كثرا تفصيلك لذكرباتك ولأوقات سبقت الحزن فجاءت بها حاستك السادسه...
شكرا..علي الرغم من أنها قطعة حزينه جدا..الا انها أيضا جميله جدا..

زاد الله من صبرك ورحم والدتك..

رحمها الله رحمةً واسعة وألزمكم الصبر وحُسن العزاء.
إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون.

سعاد

الاخت Souad Taj-Elsir

تحياتي وتقديرى
اشكركم علي المواساة وحسن العزاء
اتمني ان لا تري مكروها في عزيز لديكم

عوض

الاخت العزيزة Muna Khugali

اشكرك كثيرا علي هذه المشاركة الوجدانيةالحارة
بالطبع ما اقسي الفراق خاصة عندمايكون الامرمتعلق بالام.

احييك علي القراءة الثاقبةوبعدالنظر النقدي والتناول المفيد لهذا الموضوع

مع خالص التقدير والاحترام

عوض

الاخ Hamid brgo

اشكرك علي المرور والافادة مع تقديرى واحترامى

عوض

اصدق التعازي اخي عوض الحسن
وربنا يصبرك ويخفف مصابك.
الام مافي مثلها يا اخي...
فقدها يشطرنا من الداخل....فهي كل المحنه و الحجات الحلوه.....بحياتنا.
صلي لاجلها ولاجل نفسك ان يمنحك الصبر و المقدره على التحمل.
ولاحول ولاقوة الا بالله وانا لله وانا اليه لراجعون.

الاخت ترجي مصطفي

لك غالي التحايا والتقدير

اشكركم علي مشاركتكم الوجدانية وصدق تعازيكم
اتمني لكم ولمن حولكم الصحة ودوام العافية