Temporal life
The year is 2022, and as I look over my shoulder, a vast ocean of memories streams past my gazing and longing eyes. The cravings, the joyous moments, and the attachments of yesteryears, still send shivers down my spine as well as its now ever-so fragile vertebral column.
Then I look in the mirror, and I see clear and obvious signs of the verse in 30:54 – Allah (is) the One Who created you from weakness, then made from after weakness strength, then made from after strength weakness and gray hair. He creates what He wills, and He (is) the All-Knower the All-Powerful.
My hands are shaking by now as I confess and reveal to myself the confidential testimony of my errors, my sins, and my transgressions, violating the principles laid down clearly in the coded Holy Book, but which I have left coveted for my child’s giving away ceremony in marriage, completely naïve in spite of my knowledge.
Now I am picturing the days to come and though the calendar is blurred, to many it is better to use a euphemism to defend themselves from being fearful of the end, and so I may be one of them and continue to pretend that the twilight is yet to dawn upon me. I struggle though, as my back cracks and my shoulders stiffen, and my wrists crackle. Then as I shut my eyes in search of solace, a vision of sand being thrust over me amidst my pounding heart almost completely surrounds me with the intense desire to beg the Supreme for His mercy, and then my mind asks me to calm down reminding me of His mercy in every dimension.
As I emerge from this near-death experience in this Temporal life, another message on my phone announcing the passing of someone I knew motivates me to think of doing good, but it is keeping away from the bad that eludes me, it is from hurting others and feeling hurt that seems to dissipate from my moral centre, and then as I gravitate back to my acquired elements, the cycle of awakening, the Grave Resolution starts all over again.
“We will all, someday, experience death, and become obsolete as a dead leaf falling from a tree, crushed by passersby to ashes underlying the earth” – Kim Elizabeth
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