DefSufi

Praise be to Allah! For the first time in 14 years of being Muslim, I made it completely through the Ramadan fast. It's not that I haven't tried before, but that I tried and failed miserably. The first year, I lasted 4 days. It ended with a rather perilous left turn across oncoming traffic into a Hardee's after I realised I was losing consciousness at the steering wheel. I pulled up to the drive through and ordered the first thing I could read: a sausage and egg biscuit and milk. I spent the rest of the day crying.

The second year, I lasted 2 days before ending up in the ER. The third year, I lasted 3 days, and remember nearly crawling across the floor to the 'fridge to grab a yoghurt and an apple.

The issue: hypoglycemia. Or so I was repeatedly told. And so, I gave up on the idea of fasting, and did other things to make up for it, such as charity, being extra diligent about behaviour and company and whereabouts and prayer, etc.

But this year was different. And here's a BIG part of the reason why.

Last year, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She had been misdiagnosed and fobbed off for so many years that it was advanced when someone finally figured out that it wasn't "being old, being arthritic, part of the lingering effects of a stroke, fatty tumours, etc. etc." When they FINALLY got around to doing more than a standard chest x-ray, and then actually did a biopsy on the huge lump she had in her neck, the doctors had more than an "oh shit" moment. More than 7 years of complaints, and finally, FINALLY, someone figured out that it wasn't COPD, but lung cancer. And it was everywhere.

My mother had her first chemo session 2 days before Thanksgiving. Two days after Thanksgiving, she was in hospital after she collapsed at home. She spent the next 2 and a half months in hospital, and another 3 weeks in rehab before she came home... on her 78th birthday. She nearly died, time and again. First too much chemo (her first treatment was nearly 3 times the usual dosage), then bad heparin (Baxter later recalled contaminated heparin), then overmedication from pain meds (thank God for a doctor Borges who redid her meds and saved her life!). The nurses were either fabulous or fireable, depending on the day. There was more than one time when my dad, sister and I were raising hell at the nurses' station because Mum had either been neglected or mistreated or mismedicated.

We watched her go from a vegetable that the hospital wanted to shift to hospice (who didn't want to take her because they were afraid she'd live longer than 6 weeks!) so she could die, to a woman who walked out of rehab on her own power 3 months later when she finally got the right treatment. We watched her go back through chemo, in and out of hospital and rehab again thanks to CDIF, watched her go through gamma knife surgery to remove brain lesions. And she did all of this with courage, and even at times, grace.

Two and a half weeks before her death on the 31st of July, she did go to hospice, with the expectation that they would get her pain under control, and send her home. It was supposed to be 3 days. Then it was a week. Then 2. And then, it was over. She was adamant that my husband and I go on our holiday, we all expected her to be home by the time we got back. I was in an Elton John concert the evening she died. When we got back to the hotel and I saw the message light flashing on the phone in the room, I didn't even have to think about what it concerned.

My mother didn't want a memorial, or a funeral. She wanted cremation, and to be scattered over an area that she loved.

I watched her go through SO much, just to preserve her physical life. She did it many days in severe pain, and most days with a smile on her face. I got to take her out on the last shopping trip she went on, just 2 days before she went into hospice. It was a fun day out.

After seeing all that, how could I not take the challenge of Ramadan? After watching someone go through so much to preserve an earthly life, how could I pass up the chance to do SO LITTLE to preserve my eternal one? My friends remarked that it was a lot to ask, 30 days of no food or drink during 14 hours of daylight. In reality, how little, how VERY LITTLE it is that Allah asks of us during Ramadan. So little.

And so, I was determined to make it all the way through. I read whatever I could find about hypoglycemia and fasting, and followed the advice I found. Yes, I was hungry. Yes, I was thristy, Yes, I was tired. Yes, I was caffeine deprived. And some days I was all 4 at the same time, which was really when the challenge hit.

And I would pray. And I would think about my mum and how she made it through her ordeal until there was no ordeal left.

And I made it through the daylight hours until sunset. And from 1 Ramadan, until Ramadan was over.

Through my mother, I Iearnt just how tough a human being can be. And through Ramadan, I learnt just how NOT fragile I am. I learnt where my weak spots are, where I give in when I don't have to, what I can do to be stronger.

My mother's test came late in her life, and became the end of her life. I pray that it is a test that I never have to take.

But the test of Ramadan is one that I will now take over and over again. Until whatever comes, comes.

May Allah be pleased with my mother. May Allah be pleased with all of us, and have mercy and compassion on all of His creation.

Happy Holidays and celebrations to all of my readers who will be celebrating: Eid, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Sohain, Diwali, the Birth of the Bab, and numerous holy days that  I have failed to mention.

As Red Skelton and Dave Allen said: "May God bless", and "May your God go with you."

Blessings.