Reflections

“When an individual passes away, it is a reminder for those around him to take heed.”

In the span of 11 days, the Orlando Khoja Shia Community has been left void of two amazing personalities.

By no means would I be doing justice in writing a tribute for either, as I only got to know them in the later years of their life, but here, I hope to share one touching characteristic that stood out in each of these individuals that I hope to adapt and that we can all learn from.

On Monday November 28, 2016, Marhuma Nargisbai Ladak was reunited with her Creator. Indeed a loss, not only for her children and grandchildren, but for all of us who were and still are ‘the Orlando Community family’. I remember vividly, when she first moved to Orlando. We would pick her up on our way to mosque, or to Tafsir classes, as she lived right around the corner. Her distinctive trademark would be that you could ask her any question and she would respond, always ending with ‘Alhamdulillah, Khuda nu Shukr che Beta’, ‘Praise be to God, Thanking God, Dear’, raising her hand. In the later years that we were in Orlando, despite feeling old age, she never once complained, and constantly thanked God. She taught me to be thankful at all time and reminded me of the Hadith of Imam Ali (A) where he says ‘When some blessings come to you, do not drive them away through thanklessness’.

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Everybody has ‘one of those days’. Today was mine.

If I miss the 8:07am bus to work, it affects my whole daily schedule! I tend to then miss my second bus as I’m late, and then I walk into work later than I’m supposed to. There’s no telling how late! So when I woke up this morning and saw my phone clock say 8:05am, I knew I was definitely going to have one of those days.

What’s tougher is to try putting a positive spin on what I knew would be a day going south! But trust me, perspective rules the day! When I began to look for the granules of positive in everything that was happening today, I found that there was more worth to my day than I gave credit for.

It is around 10:30pm and the day has been pretty awesome. So though this post is short, it’s just a reminder to me and all of you reading out there that our perspective on life can change how we live our lives.  Be positive! When we choose to be positive God also sees our efforts and we see more doors of opportunity open in front of us.

Iltimaase Dua x

You know how girls usually have this crazy ‘connection’ with their sisters or best friends, and we feel guys will never really understand?

We are ’emotional beings’ and they don’t really get it…or so we think…

Over the last month…I learnt something quite different. Give a guy the opportunity to ‘open up’ or ‘be sentimental’ and he can be just that.

I’m learning.

My better half has two brothers; and no sisters. So when I first got married I found it quite difficult to comprehend that my mother in law and I were the only ones chatting at the dinner table while the boys would focus intently at their food, working on it like it was a mission; and then cautiously excuse themselves from the table when they felt they could get a word in between our conversations.

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