Death

What is death? I don't think one realises what it is until someone very close dies. I know I didn't. I understand how this life is temporary and that everyone has to die. But it hadn't come hit me in the face until now. I can't fathom how someone I met almost every single day won't be coming anymore. Won't be calling me anymore. Someone who would joke around and lighten up the mood on the dreariest days. Someone who loved me like a daughter. Someone who could joke around with me like no one else can. Someone who could always make me smile. It made me realise that I haven't really understood death. Because I never had to. Not like this. I can't imagine what her children must be going through. I'm so traumatised. They must be a hundred times worse. I'm also very guilty. That maybe I didn't love her enough. Maybe I didn't pray for her enough. Maybe I should have spoken to her that last time she called and I was busy. Maybe I should have let her know what she means to me and that the world is a sad place without her. There are too many maybes. I have also realised alarmingly that life goes on. It shouldn't come as a shock but it has. We haven't forgotten how to smile and laugh. But every time I laugh, I think to myself how could I? Everyone is going on with their lives. Sometimes it makes me angry. It's like she was never there. Sometimes I feel like jostling people and reminding them to stop thinking about themselves. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's guilt. I don't know how to make someone such an integral part of my life into a memory. I don't know how to do that. I can't accept that she is in fact no more. When my mom called me to tell me, I actually called her back and asked her if she was kidding. Even as I was asking her I knew it was in vain but I still had to ask. For a long time I wished I would wake up already and that this was just a really bad dream. That I would just give up everything in sadqa and just have her back and tell her about it and how incredibly important she is. Nothing happened. I never woke up because I was never asleep.