by Qanta Ahmed
“Salaam alaikum, Doctora Qanta,” Hesham addressed me. “Welcome to my home. I am so happy to receive you.” Even in grief he was gallant. “I have to apologize, my wife is still not returned. Since we lost Raeef we have been staying with her parents in Riyadh. I apologize there are no ladies in the house to greet you.” Hesham trailed into a silence and then, after seeing we were all properly seated in his living room, he vanished, assuring us of a rapid return.
We looked around at each other, awkward in this newfound intimacy linked by a crushing bereavement. We sat on one of three sofas. I perched on a distant end so no man could feel squashed by proximity to a woman. The room was still. The carpets seemed to have been freshly vacuumed. The faint aroma of heated dust filled the air. A low coffee table was laid out with Arabic coffee sets, plates of dates. Fruit had been freshly sliced. Plates, cutlery, and napkins were laid neatly in our anticipation. Some incense burned on a credenza near by. The home was prettily decorated. Decorative brass plates lined the walls. A sole house plant was the only sign of life, motionless in a terracotta pot. The shades on high windows were lowered. The sunlight struck blindly against the sealed shades, bathing us in a muted white light. No one said anything.
Hesham returned, bustling in with a heavy tray of coffee. The heady aroma of cardamom filled the room. Once ready, he poured it into a shiny steel Alfi thermos, a chic German variety which was very popular in the Kingdom at the time. As he busied himself unloading the tray and distributing first the tiny egg-cup-like coffee cups to each of us, I realized he had prepared all the food himself. There was no assistant, no cook, no maid (all very common in a Saudi physician's household) at the house. All the staff had been given time to grieve while the family had repaired to the grandparents' villa. The servants had been very attached to his youngest child.
“Today is my first day at home since the funeral,” Hesham began, straining to be cheerful. Our silence was becoming painful. I had to break it.
“Thank you for receiving us, Hesham. Your house is very beautiful. Please, you should not be serving us like this. May I assist?” It seemed incomprehensible that the grieving father should serve us in this manner.
“Absolutely not. You are my guest. Please remain seated.” With these words he stopped me mid-ascension from the sofa. I was relieved. I was still wearing my abbayah and with the hot coffee and high heels I was likely to fall had I actually had to serve the men myself.
“Hesham, we came here today because we feel so unspeakably sad about the death of your son. We wanted to see you to tell you this, to express our sympathies. What can we do for you?”
I spoke for the whole room. The men shifted uncomfortably in their seats. There was a loud and awkward creaking of leather. Pouring the last cup of coffee, Hesham at last took a seat on a sofa to my right. Faris sat opposite me in an armchair, his eyes downcast. Imran and Imtiaz were to my left, just out of my peripheral vision. I could feel their relief as I spoke our feelings.
“Thank you, Qanta. You are all very kind for visiting me. It helps a lot to see friends—”
Faris interrupted him. “This was Qanta's idea. We are so happy she thought of this opportunity.” And just as abruptly he fell back into a strangled silence.
“Tell me, Hesham,” I asked, “can you speak about what happened?” Hesham turned towards me, wrapping a fat ankle behind his bulging calf. His thobe rose over the stretch of his belly revealing the hems of his sirwal, the trousers which Saudi men wore underneath their thobe. He looked directly at me, stretching one bulky arm across the back of the sofa. He began to tell us of the death of his child. I had a feeling the story had already been often told. He spoke in a resigned, small voice.
“I was beginning my vacation last Thursday. I had been stuck closing an abdomen on my last case. My cell phone was ringing constantly. Finally the OR nurse answered it. It was my wife saying that I should leave the hospital immediately, our son had been hurt. I dropped my instruments at once and the resident took over. I think Dr. al-Naimi continued, though I don't know. The OR nurses took care of everything. I ran to my car and raced to the house. I didn't know where my wife or son were. I was driving down the main street, the one just here before you turn into our lane, when my wife reached me by phone again.
“‘We are at the Security Forces Hospital. Hesham,’ she said, ‘our baby was hit by a car!’ And she was hysterical. I couldn't understand the rest.” Around the room several of the men were already weeping. Every man who had accompanied me here was a father to at least one son. In fact Faris had a son who was exactly the same age as the slain Raeef.
Hesham continued, “I drove there like a maniac, running red lights. I don't know how I reached there in such confusion. I drove up to the main entrance and left the engine running with the keys inside. I ran like a madman to the ER. I remembered it from when I had to come in and assisted with cases here. It was already over, Qanta. When I entered the room, he had just died.”
Hesham stopped, sobbing for a long time. I listened, unable to bridge the gulf of grief and gender between us. I wished I could touch his shoulder in sympathy but I was immobilized by the rules of Saudi culture. No one moved in the room. Faris expressed our sadness as he uttered several verses of the Quran aloud in a soft, soulful voice filling the terrible space.
After a time, Hesham continued, “My small son, my little boy, was lying there on the steel stretcher. The ER attending was there. He was crying himself. Raeef had horrible head injuries. I actually saw some brain tissue there on the stretcher. I think his neck was broken too. My wife had fallen to the floor. Her abbayah was covered in Raeef's blood. She had reached him before me. The doctor finally told me Raeef had arrived in cardiac arrest, but the team could not revive him. My poor wife had waited alone outside for thirty minutes. I can't believe it… I can't believe it.”
There was nothing we could say to assuage his pain. He slumped again into a heap of grief. The white sleeves of his thobe were now damp with his tears. He ran his hands back and forth over his pate, tearing at the few strands of hair that remained.
“How did the accident happen?” I prodded gently. “Are you able to tell us?”
He looked up, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. I passed him some Kleenex. With red-rimmed eyes, he smiled at me with gratitude. Somehow it was helping him to retell the ghastly story. In a loud gulp, I swallowed some coffee. My throat was contracting under the terrible grief so concentrated within the small room. Immediately the others followed suit. There was a clinking of coffee cups on glass tabletops. Someone chewed a cardamom seed. We waited.
After taking a deep breath, Hesham began to speak again,
“Raeef was a very special child, Qanta. He was very good. He was very obedient. He was a follower. He never once angered me. We worried about him because he was so trusting, a small friendly angel. He was so different from the other children.
“I had always told the children to play inside the yard, not outside. You have seen the traffic out there. And our street is so narrow that the boys cannot play there because of the passing traffic and the heavy parking. So they always want to go out toward the shops where they like to play in the parking lots.
“I know our yard is small, but there is a small lawn where they could play, and when I go to work the drive is empty and they are allowed to play football behind the closed gates. Without the car there is enough space. It is not much. I am not a rich man. But Alhumdullilah (by the Grace of God) we have enough. Everyday for years I am telling them to play inside, not on the street. And the children always listened. My children listen always to me. I never have to raise my voice. Their mother is the disciplinarian.”
With a sidelong glance to the other men in the room he allowed himself a watery chuckle. The room eased under the mounting strain just a fraction. Recognizing the universality of marriage, a quiet ripple of smiles flickered through the room of men, vanishing almost immediately.
“Raeef was excited that day. He knew
I was to be on vacation for two weeks. We were planning a trip to the sea in Bahrain, a special treat for my family.” He trailed off looking wildly around the room, in utter disbelief at his new reality. “On the day of the accident he was playing with Wissam and Mourad, his two cousins. He loved them. He wanted to be like them. You know, they were older. They could climb trees. They could play football. Raeef just adored them. He couldn't wait to grow up.
“My wife was in the home supervising dinner. Tutu, our Malaysian maid, was finding some difficulty in preparing the omali (my favorite dessert) which my wife always likes to make for me on the first day of my vacation. So, my wife,” he stuttered under fresh waves of grief, “… Raeef's mother…she was therefore in the back of the house and didn't realize that the yard had become quiet. When she called for Raeef to wash his hands and bring the others in for a snack, she realized no one was in the yard and the gates were opened. She went into the street and couldn't see them. She followed the road, remembering there were shops which sold some candy and Pepsi nearby. She also remembered the boys had wanted a new football because the one they were playing with had somehow lost the air pressure. She noticed it, deflated, in the corner of the garden. It was then she realized they had gone to buy a new ball with their pocket money.
“Now she started running and right away she saw Mourad and Wissam across the road, entering the shop. They seemed to be laughing. But Raeef, who was not able to keep up, had been running behind them. Suddenly my wife saw him in the road, actually in between the lanes. His cousins told him to stay back, that they would be returning in a minute, and Raeef looked confused. He recognized his mother and just at that time Hayyat, my wife, saw a black GMC Suburban racing toward our son. I think, we think, Raeef saw it and got so scared he couldn't move. The truck was so big the driver didn't see the child until he was almost on top of him. Raeef was hit by the fender and went up over the windscreen. It was horrible. The driver immediately stopped the car and was so distraught, but he was a good man. He called to my wife and put them both in the car and drove them to the security forces. When I arrived there, his Suburban was standing at the ER entrance, covered in my son's blood. I didn't realize until later… well… you know the rest.”
Hesham was inconsolable for a long time. Even under his tremendous grief, however, his weeping was soft and controlled. He was trapped in a monumental silence of shuddering sobs.
At last, in a voice swollen with emotion, Faris spoke, “How is Raeef's mother?”
“Faris,” Hesham responded, “she is terrible. She has eaten nothing since Thursday. She cannot stop crying. It is so distressing. She is a very strong woman but I seem to have lost her in this tragedy. I pray Allah sends us relief. This is a very difficult pain for parents.”
Suddenly Hesham turned to me. “You know, Qanta, we have to be very patient. Everything we have is because of Allah's bounty, His Grace. We have nothing without His Benevolence. He is All Powerful, and we must remember whatever He gives to us, He can also take away at any time. Everything comes from Him and everything returns to Him. As parents we have to be prepared to return our children if He asks for them. I tell my wife, Raeef was so dear to Allah, he wanted him back very soon.”
Hesham stopped to pause for breath. Stirring finally out of his empathic sadness, Faris finally rose to the occasion and began sharing some of his monumental scholarship of Islam. He often surprised us with his vignettes of Islamic philosophy in between making rounds in the ICU.
Addressing me, he began to explain, “Hesham and Hayyat are being tested in the most difficult manner. If I can explain something to you? The death of a child is a special trial for parents. There are three fundamental beliefs in Islam about the death of a child which Allah teaches us to make the parents' suffering a little easier.” He glanced quickly at Hesham who nodded, encouraging him to continue. We listened, rapt while he explained the bereavement reaction to the death of children from an Islamic point of view. As Faris explained, speaking slowly and carefully, sometimes pausing to recollect a precise detail, Hesham periodically sighed and filled with tears. At one point he felt compelled to interject, “Did you know it is said a mother who has lost one child is being pulled to heaven by one hand by her deceased child? And that a mother who has lost two children is admitted to heaven by her children each of whom leads her through the gates by one hand? Raeef is pulling his mother through to heaven even now. I try to tell her that, to make her feel better.”
“Hesham is describing intercession.” Faris continued, “Allah wants us to learn patience. The death of a child is perhaps the most difficult test to develop this, Qanta. Patience is a tremendous virtue in Islam because Allah wants us to cope with difficulties and trials always with acceptance.”
Faris went on to explain how the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself emphasized that the person who praises God both in good times and bad is the true believer and most worthy of God's Grace. He continued, “Raeef's death is terribly painful for his parents but they have been given a special opportunity to grow closer to Allah.”
As I listened I was reminded of the amazing tolerance of the patients I had attended in this country. The principles Faris was describing were probably why my patients, no matter how ill, were surrounded, by and large, by nonjudgmental, accepting relatives who seemed equally pleased and comfortable with my efforts no matter what the outcome of their family member. Relatives of patients in Saudi Arabia were surprisingly devoid of the recriminations despite the severity of disease, the unexpectedly precipitous deaths, or the difficult course their family members often faced in critical illness. I used to explain this away by the absence of litigiousness in the Kingdom where medical malpractice suits do not exist, but now from Faris's careful explanations I understood that this belief that one must be patient in the face of terrible ordeals and terrible tribulations was evidently dearly held among all Saudis in the Kingdom.
Faris continued, “A child who has passed from this life, at the Will of God, is allowed to plead on behalf of his parents. God's heart is soft to these young, innocent souls. Always tell a suffering parent this, because it will soothe their grief. Allah allows the deceased child to speak to Him on his parents' behalf. Raeef will intercede, meaning, plead to Allah for His mercy when He must make judgment on his parents in the afterlife, asking Allah to excuse their mistakes. Normally only special souls can appeal to Allah at the time of judgment, asking Allah to be merciful in his judgment, for instance like the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) or holy saints may speak on behalf of the soul. But the soul of a child can speak for his parents too.”
Faris felt compelled to add more, “The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught that a child who dies, whether a boy or a girl, will always appeal on their parents' behalf. Not only for the mother,” and he looked significantly at Hesham, “but also on behalf of the father. Allah will look very compassionately on these parents who will suffer lifelong for their precious loss and of course, the child is always admitted to heaven in the afterlife, to Jannat.” Faris used the Arabic word for special emphasis. “Because children are pure, without sin, and die in a state of innocence, like Raeef. And what is most important of all is to remember it is said the child will not bear to be separated from his parents in heaven and so when Allah is calling him to Jannat, he will refuse to enter the gates of heaven without his beloved mother and father's admission. In this way he takes each parent by the hand and leads them towards Allah in Heaven. And God takes pity on them.”9
“How beautiful,” I couldn't help saying. Hesham nodded.
“Raeef is taking us by the hand. I know he is,” Hesham murmured. “Maybe we will stand before Allah in judgment and maybe Raeef will plead our sins to be forgiven. And you know, Qanta, God may take with one hand but he gives with another. Inshallah he has given us much, and he will give to us again.”
I looked at him puzzled, wondering if he was considering replacing Raeef with a new baby. I didn't dare ask such a sensitive question. The
grieving father was too raw. Identifying my confusion, Faris again helped me understand and explained how another belief about the death of a child is substitution, though as humans we cannot begin to comprehend His wisdom. Some parents think that one child has been taken so that they might receive another who is even more pious. Or it could be Allah wished the child a sinless, innocent death in order for him to appeal for his imperfect parents on the Day of Judgment.
Hesham was calm now, approaching tranquility. “You know, Qanta,” Hesham began, “my wife always thought Raeef was special. Mashallah, also I think he was. Sometimes it worried my wife, because he was so adoring of Allah. His request every night at bedtime was, ‘Mummy, please read me the Quran.’ And even when my wife tried to read him a storybook or children's story he was not satisfied. She was worried by his piety. He seemed to have a maturity way beyond his six short years. He liked best the stories about the Prophet and he liked very much to picture Allah. None of our other children were like this. He was very pure, Qanta. That is why we really believed he was angelic. I think that is why he had to return so soon.
“You must know, Qanta, that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was himself an orphan. You remember he lost his parents and his beloved uncle and grandfather at a very early stage in life. His parents died when he was a young child. His life was marked by loss, Qanta. As a father, he went on to lose every single son and numerous daughters. We always tell one story to teach Muslims about grief following the death of a child. It is the story of when he was burying his son, Ibrahim, who had died in infancy. Do you know this example?”
I quickly admitted my ignorance. Quietly Imran switched on a lamp. Imtiaz poured some more coffee. A stray cat called for its mate in the alley outside. Looking through the shades I could tell it was finally growing dark. We listened in silence. Faris's explanations of Islamic teachings were very compelling. We were ensconced in this unfolding beauty of Islam.