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Shelina Janmohamed

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Reflecting on my dad

1/1/2024

 
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I am heartbroken to share the news that my beloved father passed away two weeks ago.
He was a man who embodied history but, as in the case of so many men like him, it is unlikely that you will find his name in history books.
My father was born in a small town called Mingoyo in the late 1930s, in today’s Tanzania, then Tanganyika. His father, from Kutch, India, had been working in trade in the British Empire port of Aden, and eventually came to Tanganyika where he married my grandmother.
Mingoyo was a small but increasingly bustling town as the British grew their presence and commerce after gaining control of the region from the Germans. It became a stopping point between the bigger coastal town of Lindi and the East African interior.
My grandfather was a businessman, bought land, mills, and at one point even travelled to Nairobi after the end of the second world war to buy trucks that the British government were disposing of.
As a young boy of 14 or so, my Dad moved to Lindi to pursue his secondary education. There he stayed in a hostel set up for Muslim students, attached to the mosque. His friends from those days nearly eight decades on still have a closeness and sweetness to their friendships.
In order to establish himself financially, he started working for the local oil company, which later turned into Mobil and then Esso. As part of his work, he travelled across East Africa and at one point found himself in Tanga, my Mum’s home town. After being introduced by mutual friends, he unsurprisingly took a shine to this radiant, soft-hearted, talented, beautiful woman and soon they married and moved to Dar es Salam, the capital.
I suspect he was a cool cat in his youth, because during this period it was the height of Bollywood, and my Dad was often compared to the actor and star Raaj Kumar.
He was careful with money, but he was not tight, and he always encouraged to spend wisely but to spend well. He applied this philosophy to his cars, which he took great joy in. He drove a Peugeot 406 to Tanga for the purpose of his marriage. He said it was no good though, swapped it for a Ford Anglia which turned out to be a dud and then eventually had a stylish VW Beetle. Much later in London, I remember when I was about four years old his relish when he bought a beautiful and very fashionable red Ford Cortina.
Like my grandfather, my father seemed to be able to turn his hand to many skills. He had a sharp intellect, and was also clear in his thinking and an excellent, firm decision-maker. He was well known for his incredible organisational skills and his exceptional memory. I only recently discovered that he had wanted to study medicine or engineering.
I always felt sad that life did not give him the opportunities for a formal education, but it was not for trying. The importance of education was a recurring theme in his life, something he worked hard to gift to his children, and to encourage others to do the same for theirs. While in Dar es Salam, he took a commercial class for bookkeeping. He also wanted to learn German as his intention was to go to Germany to study engineering at university to build on his ‘on the job’ training. He was ‘good at figure work’ (I get my mathematical mind from my Dad) and he passed his Royal Society of Arts 1st stage exam set in London. He was preparing for the 2nd stage. But in his own words for himself: ‘it was not meant to be’.
That was one of the many extraordinary things about my Dad: he did not resent or regret how things unfolded. Because knowledge wasn’t something only to be found in schools. He was the epitome of the self-taught man. He was also always unflinchingly focused on moving forward, planning for the future, being strategic.
It was this strategic planning that means that I’m writing this today from London. Tanganyika won independence from the British in 1961, and united with Zanzibar in 1964 to ultimately become Tanzania. His family held British passports as ‘overseas subjects’. As he was working for an oil company that was about to be nationalised, he recounted that he would have had to choose between a Tanzanian and a British passport.
Which brings me to my father as an embodiment of the British immigrant story.
The hard work that my father and mother put in was part of building Britain post-war, emerging from the difficult 1970s, and nurturing children who now go on to contribute – just as they did – to Britain. It wasn’t just his hard graft, taxes and nurturing of a next generation, he always wanted the communities, the country – and the states around the world – to be good, do good, to do better, especially in treating fairly all its people no matter their social status. He was a citizen who knew his individual responsibilities and worked hard to establish and elevate his family, but a citizen who also took his responsibilities to be part of the social and political process, to be fully informed and to inform others, and to apply the lenses of truth, justice and equality.
Dad was blessed to complete his hajj twice, and made several umrahs including one in 2006. He told me that when he was sitting near the Kaba in Makkah he started talking to the person next to him. That’s exactly the kind of thing Dad always did. Whenever we were travelling he would disappear and start chatting to anyone and everyone and within a few minutes we would suddenly have dinner and guest invitations from all sorts of people.
It turned out that the person next to him was the new Sultan of Sokoto, appointed to this role after his father was killed in an air crash.
Dad – because he never saw anyone as less or more than him, and who was always driven to share knowledge and guidance - was not phased at all. Instead, he gave advice to the new Sultan telling him, now you are a leader in Nigeria, you should read the letter of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the 4th Caliph, sent to the newly appointed governor of Egypt, Malik e Ashtar. This way you can exercise justice. (By the way this letter is an excellent read for successful and just governance, and I do wish our politicians would read it.)
This is what Dad was like, he would talk to anybody and he didn’t care if they were someone in a shop, or the Sultan of a Kingdom. And the thing about Dad was that everyone talked to him. He was humble, approachable, a distinctive, memorable personality.
He always found a connection with others and had a natural power to always fit in and feel comfortable with any and all. He was Indian, African, British, Muslim. Linguistically he was talented. He would encourage my efforts to learn languages at school: French and Spanish, and then later Arabic. But I could not help but admire that by nature he spoke five languages fluently: English, Kutchi, Gujarati, Urdu and Swahili. It hurt my heart though to hear him apologising to people around him that he felt he didn’t speak good English, perhaps worn down by the racism he faced as an immigrant: he was in fact a powerhouse in communicating his message.
‘You have to speak the truth!” was something he would say often. He always encouraged people to speak up, and would tell you to fight for justice. I can’t tell you the number of letters he asked me to help him write to MPs, embassies and people in the public eye because it might create change, but even if it didn’t it was our duty to ensure “they have to know!” Because doing nothing is not an option. And you have to do whatever is within your own capability and sphere of influence.
Like many families of immigrant heritage we had the family lore of how he arrived in Britain with two suitcases and £75. I never really thought much of this till recently, as it’s such a motif of the immigrant story. But the £75 had a specific reason. And the story behind it meant that I might well have had a very different life.
He told me that he looked at the other countries that had recently gained independence and saw that there was great turmoil and he was therefore worried about the stability and security of his new family. He thought Zambia was doing well, and had good opportunities for engineers like him. He was already the supervisor for all the engineers in Tanzania. At that time, only a maximum of £150 could be taken out of the country as part of currency exchange control. He used £75 for his expenses to travel to Zambia to seek employment. He was offered a job, but not accommodation for his family, which was in short supply. And, as someone who always prioritised his family, he felt this made it too risky to relocate to Zambia without surety of where his young family would live. This meant he was left with £75 which he used along with his British passport to travel to London (‘You are making a mistake going to the UK’ said one of his aunts, ‘It’s so cold!’). His family followed soon behind.
I wonder about the many and varied counterfactuals of the life that might have been mine. If my grandfather had not travelled, I might well have grown up in Kutch, India. If he had decided to stay in Aden and marry there – and we had Indian friends and communities that did exactly that – my connection might be to Yemen. If my father hadn’t made the decision to leave Tanzania at all, I might have been born and lived in any number of places in Tanzania, Mingoyo, Lindi, Tanga, Zanzibar, Arusha, Dar es Salam... Perhaps another alternative universe would have seen me living today in Zambia. And yet here I am in London, the daughter of an immigrant adventurer, brave heart, hero.
With his £75 in hand when he landed in London he told me: “I took a taxi and headed to Bayswater. I told the driver to take me to the Porchester Hotel, in Porchester Gardens. The hotel charges were £5 for a week with breakfast, evening meal and bed.” He also told me that he later considered buying one of the five storey Bayswater houses in the 1960s for sale for £6000. (If only Dad, if only!)
The following years were of a growing family establishing themselves in north London (‘We couldn’t believe the toilet was outside the house’ said my parents having come from indoor loos, ‘and you had to go out in the snow!’); or carrying the laundry up the hill to the laundromat; of buying a house (Other homeowners on the street mounted a campaign to prevent this young Asian family from buying it. The bank demanded a 50% deposit because they were of Asian heritage); of intrepid travellers (the house was £6000 in 1972, they did a six week epic journey from Egypt to Iraq via Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia for £1400!); and then much later, me.
Dad was brave, forward thinking, pioneering, independent, resilient and unbelievably hardworking. He had such talent in his hands. He was forever repairing things, painting, decorating, DIYing (he hand-built my rocking crib), fixing the car, and most of all gardening.
He knew how to cook and keep house. When I was a very small child and my Mum was in hospital he ran the household, did the cooking and even brushed and tied plaits in my hair before taking me to school. He was incredibly hands on with all the domestic work, as well as looking after me. In fact, he would not be waiting around for others to do chores. He liked to say “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today, and don’t leave for later what you can do now.”
He was always hungry for news and learning. I can’t remember a single car journey where he was not listening to BBC Radio 4 or the World Service. Before the internet where you can easily access the news, we would go to Brent Cross, and then he would go to WH Smith and read all the newspapers. Honestly, the things he knew about how the system worked, and what to do was extraordinary. He could tell you details about countries, leaders and politics going back decades. “You have to inform yourself” was a key mantra. And he saw it as his responsibility to share that knowledge with others.
In more recent years this extended to him talking about the Qur’an and explaining its verses and then applying it. As one family member recounted after my father’s passing: in any conversation you had with my Dad, he would very quickly turn to a verse of the Qur’an to shed light on the discussion. The Qur’an was not an academic text to be recited by rote. It was a practical guide that applied for both micro and macro events.
If he heard about children in any kind of suffering you could see how much pain it caused him in his heart. And of course, when it came to children, there were none he loved and encouraged more than his beautiful granddaughters, his ‘fragrant flowers’ and his ‘dollies’.
Perhaps most memorably in recent years were his roses. The perfect deep crimson in the perfect rose shape, the softest velvet petals, with the most exquisite fragrance that you could ever imagine, his rose bushes flourished. He would delight in gifting hundreds of individual roses, hand delivered (many by me!) to friends, family and neighbours and their beauty and fragrance went into people’s homes and hearts where even words could not reach. As his nephew described: this was my father’s ‘sadaqah’, an Islamic word for charity or contribution. He gave sadaqah from his talent of growing these roses. He had an appreciation for beauty, and an understanding of the hard work required to nurture it. What I admire and hope to emulate is his instinctive knowledge of the deep inner joy that beauty which touches all the senses brings to the soul.
The roses are perhaps the perfect symbol for Dad: nurtured with care and dedication, absolutely one of a kind, unforgettable, thoughtful about others, and leaving a lasting impression on all those he met.
Nothing was ever too much trouble for him to do for his family. I can hear his voice saying: “If it can make your life easier…” He was absolutely always there.
He managed to strike the incredible balance of trusting absolutely in my judgement, but always being there beside me.
And in recent years I was always right beside him. As those of you who have read my writing about my Mum will know that the last four years (and several years previously) along with my sibling, I was a primary carer to both my parents. For many people one parent takes the lead on caring for the other, but in this case, both were ill. Every day for lunch and dinner I would provide their food, go to their home, ensure they ate; I’d accompany them to hospital appointments for hours even days and nights, answer their messages and calls throughout the day, buy their clothes, take them for drives, organise visitors and a social life – within the constraints of sheltering at home as they were immuno-suppressed. Doing their personal care. Addressing their household admin, managing their never ending paperwork for officialdom, with councils, care agencies, those who were helpful and those who were anything but. All the while as a sandwich generation carer with two small children and a full time job, and all my books and writing.
It is sitting on the knee of my father at the age of four, that I learnt to read the Qur’an. It is with him asking to check my homework, his search for the most excellent of schools, to which he dropped and picked me every day; it was his encouragement that I apply to Oxford – something he was intensely criticised for (because ‘why does a girl need to go to Oxford?’), his commitment to my Islamic education, his uncompromising non-negotiable belief that a woman should be educated and able to stand on her own two feet, that a woman has power and she has the right to exercise it, all of that is what has made me the woman I am today.
Unfortunately, in his last two decades my father faced significant life-changing illnesses. The last 18 months in particular were of immense suffering, especially after Mum –his wife of nearly 60 years – passed away 15 months ago.
The weeks and months after that gave me the chance to tighten my bond with him, and most importantly to care for him one to one to the full extent of my ability. We talked. I collected his stories. We visited my Mum together at the cemetery. We went for drives. I bought gifts on his behalf. If he had a wish, I did my best to make it happen. I gave increasing physical and emotional support, and as much comfort as I could during those challenging days.
The Prophet Muhammad used to refer to his daughter, Lady Fatima, as ‘the mother of her father’ because of the way she looked after him as well as the respect in which he held her. In recent years I was so moved when my Dad used to refer to me as his mum describing how he felt about the way I looked after him.
My most tender moments with him were those where I was able to give him greatest service: I recall gently tying his woollen scarf and putting on his coat and hat before going out. I remember kneeling on the floor to put his socks and shoes on for him. I recall holding his arm while taking him for slow, wobbly walks just a few houses along. In his last days, feeding him food, holding up his cup of tea for him to sip. Reciting Qur’an to him. I miss his text messages and his advice.
The last two months of his life were in hospital and I sat next to him in intensive care for nearly four weeks. As Muslims we believe that illness can be an expiation of sins, and my hope therefore is that he is now joyful in the eternal garden.
One of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had were those weeks of waiting.
The struggle was to manage the overwhelming emotions of not wanting to experience loss, managing the overwhelming anticipatory grief, while also being mindful of the immense responsibility as a person who believes in God to ensure you are there to help your father through the transition of death and support him.
We are not good at facing death.
We are also not good at waiting.
The waiting. With no timeline.
I know that the waiting teaches us to be patient, the waiting teaches us to be in the moment, to submit to what is greater than we are. But it is hard. Harder than almost anything I’ve ever experienced. We don’t talk about it. We should.
The paradox of waiting. Waiting for the thing that you want most because you want his suffering to end. Waiting for the thing that you want least. The thing that is ultimately inevitable.
***
I have lost both my parents within 15 months, and there is little that can reduce how terribly I miss them.
Except for knowing this.
That I was blessed to enjoy my parents till their old age, and a very grown up age of mine. And above all that I had the extreme privilege to be close to them and provide care, support and love for them in my service and duty to them. I am so thankful for this.
They made me the woman I am, and absolutely any drop of goodness from me, any kind word, any orientation to the Divine, any love, kindness, mercy, knowledge or good contribution you experience from me is from them.
In particular, it is my father – my Muslim Asian immigrant father - who has made me the woman I am: to be independent-minded, to be driven, determined, soft-hearted and to work hard to make the world better, while still finding joy in its people and places. And for that I feel immensely blessed and beyond grateful to have had him.
We live in an era where Muslim men are vilified, where immigrants are the ‘other’. We must change that, one story at a time. Which means this is not only my father’s story, but the untold stories of the men who walk with humility among us but have built our societies and made us who we are.
And nowhere was this more evident than how my father as a Muslim man not only believed, but acted to empower Muslim women by advocating for their education, their role in the public space, and their right to speak up and have their rights. It is my privilege to say that I am the daughter of this man.
Which brings me back to the same Ali ibn Abi Talib which my Dad quoted to others, who said: “Live amongst people in such a manner that if you die they weep over you and if you are alive they crave for your company.”
And that certainly seems true for Dad.
Please say a prayer or a Sura Fateha for my Dad and my Mum.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raajioon. Surely from God we come and to God we return.

Twelve days ago my mother passed away. I lost my words. But now I need to tell her story.

9/25/2022

 
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Twelve days ago my mother passed away. It is with great sadness and heartbreak that I share this news. Since then, I have lost my words.
 
But it has been important for me to gather the story of her life and her impact. Too often the stories of (immigrant) women are lost. Not having been ‘leaders’ or documented for ‘firsts’, having lived what are too easily dismissed as ‘ordinary’ or ‘unremarkable’ lives, these are in fact women who built our families, communities and yes even our nation. They were the women who created the transition to women having more choices, independence and public presence, and whose ways of womanhood have much from which we all – men and women - can learn.
 
I have written this in my most candid register, not constrained by thoughts of how language will be received, the Arabic, religiosity or the cultural elements. I have written this in full and open heart to honour the ability to be our full selves in public at our most intimate moments. And to honour the fact that my mother – despite her shyness and lack of confidence – was never anything less than herself.
 
She was a beautiful, kindly, gentle soul, who was constantly smiling and an unending source of positivity. In fact, there was never a moment when she wasn’t smiling, and in that she resembled her own mother, my Naanima. 
 
She was born in Tanga, a then thriving town in the north of today's Tanzania close to the border with Kenya. At that time it was Tanganyika, part of the British Empire. Her maternal grandfather had migrated from Gujarat to Tanganyika where her mother was born. Her father also came from India. That area of Tanganyika had been under dispute between the British and the Germans, and my mum used to tell me how her father had German bank notes stored, but to his horror discovered that they had been gnawed away. 
 
Mum was – according to her recounting – the first girl to get a bicycle in the town and ride to school. This was considered shocking – a girl on a bicycle! - but her father said it was better to be safe on a cycle than walk. 
 
She left school at 14. She loved to tell me that she excelled in English and that was her favourite subject. 
 
Mum learnt to sew and was an extremely talented seamstress and dressmaker. Along with her older sister, may Allah grant my aunt Paradise, they set up a shop in Tanga making clothes. Later, after she got married and moved to Dar Es Salam with my Dad, she set up another shop with her younger sister. Both shops were extremely popular for made to measure clothing and she would work late into the night to keep up with the orders. Till today people come to tell me about those shops. She also hand-embroidered the entirety of her wedding sari in silver thread and mirrors, which we still have until today. 
 
Mum and Dad moved to London in the late sixties, keen to experience excitement and adventure. They had British overseas subjects passports and decided to leave behind Tanzania which was transitioning to independence. They were excited by the snow, visited the Christmas lights and complained at how backwards accommodation was that toilets were at the end of the garden. 
 
Mum enrolled for a sewing course at the London College of Fashion. She recounted to me her tutor constantly wondered why she was doing the course because her sewing skills were superior to his own. She was particularly proud of her piped buttonholes (extremely difficult to do) which were perfect. 
 
She sewed haute couture garments for the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Sasha Hetherington on Kings Road which was then at the height of its global iconic status. I often reflect on how South Asian and Muslim women like my Mum were and still are derided for their image and style. And yet it was precisely through the immense talents of her hands, her creative vision and her incredible artistry – my Mum was an utter artist that created phenomenal beauty out of nothing, but society would never recognise her as such – that the UK’s global status as a fashion leader was built. We must remember the central contribution of women like my mum, without whom there would have been no fashion industry.
 
I have many memories of sitting with her as she sewed white taffeta silk wedding gowns, or added the boning to raw silk cocktail dresses. She would be at her Brother sewing machine making these clothes as though sewing with such finesse was the easiest thing in the world. And I would sit next to her at the overlocker, and she taught me how to make net petticoats, how to sew shut by hand the gap between the bodice and skirt of a large flouncy dress, or how to iron flat the seams for a flawless finish. 
 
She would make me new dresses for every occasion at the mosque. We would visit John Lewis or Southall and choose fabrics together, and then lay patterns on the cloth, cut them, and then she would somehow turn them into magical one-of-a-kind dresses, perfectly tailored to fit. We always had to be careful with money so fabric lengths were carefully calculated, and ensuring all the pieces could be cut from the limited material was like laying out a jigsaw puzzle for us to solve. 
 
She was my best cheerleader and she instilled in me a sense of self belief and value. For a woman who had been brought up in a different world where women did not take centre stage, and who by nature was humble to the point of being self-effacing, this was remarkable. 
 
My role in public life is due to her and my Dad’s encouragement. My public speaking, my community work and my aspirations and activity in the workplace are all from her. To be an active member of the community was implicit in the ethos with which she brought me up. And this went hand in hand with being a powerful and vocal public voice advocating for change. You have to use your talents, she would tell me. 
 
She probably saw herself as housewife and mother, and perhaps others did too. But she was what we would describe today as a working from home mum, ahead of her time. 
​

She was unfailing in her encouragement for my public role, my education and being out and about working – an encouragement she always had for all women, as she believed in working, in being occupied, in the importance of women fulfilling themselves and having their own path in life to travel. 
 
Yet I constantly ponder of the fact that the greatness in her life was in the doing of every day acts. It was in being a mother, wife, grandmother, hostess, community member. It was in the calmness, resilience, gentleness, positivity, humility and grace with which she carried out these roles that her power lay.
 
Despite the many and immense challenges she faced in her life, she was an ocean of forgiveness. She did not hold a grudge, and never had a sense of entitlement. She was on her path, and the actions and impacts – negative or positive - of others were absorbed into her vast heart. She simply continued, and retained her positivity and her constant encouragement and service to others. She was extremely hospitable and during the condolences many mentions were made of her samosas and her home made Indian sweets.
 
We think of religion as passed down by scholars and books. But for me it has been in the softness of the hands of my mother, her wisdom and her encouragement, in the seat next to her at the prayer mat, and the duas she recited for me. It is in the stories of religion she told, and the way she lived peacefully, truthfully, with sweetness and smiles, and faithfully. 
 
Too often we see gentleness as weakness. We think being ‘out there’ is more important and more impactful than being ‘in here’. For women of my generation breaking the barriers in the public space has been important. But for all of us – both men and women - living in a world of toxic masculinity, of asserting power and boundaries, of ‘you do you’ and exhibiting everything in public, the power of Mum’s softly spoken, gentle encouragement as a way of being a human being is a reminder to me to reclaim what we might call the ‘softer’ characteristics.
 
It seems we do not cherish, value and nurture these attributes, and we can see the results of the huge deficit we have of them in society. No wonder society is full of loud public bombast, polemics and keyboard warriorship, and people causing disruption for the sake of it. 

In Islamic tradition, the 99 Beautiful Names of God are sometimes described as falling into the Jalal (Power) and Jamal (Beauty). 
 
If there is one thing I’d like to advocate for as a result of Mum’s life is to revive the value we need to place on the Jamal qualities like being compassionate, loving, gentle and subtle. 
​

One of the names of God that she reminded me of was ‘Quick to be pleased’ (Saree’ ar-Ridha) because even a small act of kindness towards her, or a tiny effort at good made her so quickly and hugely happy. 
 
What really mattered to Mum was her education in Quran and religion. One of her favourite stories was as a young girl reciting Suratul Insan at the mosque in front of the whole congregation. Qur’an was her lifelong love, and later in life she became a madressah teacher of Quran every Sunday morning. And many children would come to her home to practice their recitation with her after school. She also taught me to recite and she would ensure I practiced every day. She studied Qur’anic Arabic and she could explain the meaning of any verse to you. 
 
While she always wanted me to be in public and make a difference, she herself was very shy. When I was six years old she had trained me to sing some long prayers in Arabic for the whole mosque congregation. She said to me how at six I had sounded calm, but she was standing next to me shaking. Whenever I was due to speak in public as a child, she would make sure I practiced with her. She would ensure that I would have opportunities to speak publicly, and always encouraged me to do so. She continued this with her four granddaughters and has been their best friend and cheerleader too. 
 
I have got to know my mother in a different way since her passing – through the words and experiences of others. Each person who came to give their condolences has shared a story of how she complimented them, of the sweetness of her words, of her humility and how even though she was an understated person, of how her personality would change the room. 
 
I have of course been blessed to experience all this myself, but to learn of her impact on others through this seemingly small, everyday and yet constant and consistent actions has been a beautiful gift. It has also been a reminder that it is in our passing remarks and small actions that we leave a mark on others and the world, and that the grand gestures do not need to be our goal. In this way, even after her passing, I am learning that being a centre of light and positivity is one of the most powerful things you can be; that it is how you make people *feel* that they remember. 
 
For every kind word she shared, I hope it will blossom into a beautiful flower for her in the eternal garden. 
 
She loved nature and beauty, and saw in each element of nature signs of the Creator. She was happiest when she could lay her eyes on water, especially the sea. If we went to the beach, she would insist on dipping her feet into the lapping waves, which somehow brought happiness to the innermost depths of her being. Sadly she never learnt to swim, but perhaps in the eternal abode she will have the chance to do so.
 
She would go and sit in her garden several times a day, and would call people to come and join her. I would take her for drives and we would sit in the car together at a viewpoint and look at the surroundings beneath us, enjoying the beauty we could behold. 
 
My Dad grows the most exquisite deep red roses which have the fragrance of roses you might imagine from a romantic fairytale, or indeed what I imagine roses would be like in paradise. When I think of her, I think of that rose, almost perfect in its shape and colour that fills the eyes with delight, the perfect velvet softness that is the feeling of happiness, and the scent which beautifies everything around it. In November, my parents would have been married sixty years. Please continue to keep my Dad in your prayers. 
 
Mum absolutely would not want me to post a picture of her. Instead, here is a glorious rose that reminds me of her, and here also is my father gifting a rose to my mum after she returned from a long stay in hospital.
 
One of my greatest privileges was to be able to look after her in her final years, and I spent several hours each day at her home for more than two years caring for her. Being a sandwich generation mother meant it wasn’t always easy to balance caring for her, my own children as well as work and life. But even in caring for her, I learnt from her. I learnt the value of service - that it isn’t what you say out in public, but it is what you do in the small moments of your life when no-one is watching, the hard physical graft, and how you serve others. That if you do it happily or begrudgingly, only you and the person you are caring for (and God) will know, and therefore doing it for love and compassion, and being present in each moment is so crucial, even if it is incredibly hard. Otherwise, if you are not kind, and you do not do it for compassion, grace and love, and for the service itself, then what is the point?
 
I also learnt an important lesson for the future from serving her - that our innermost character becomes ever more apparent as we age, because our filters and our social artifice are gradually stripped away. We show exactly who we are. And the sobering thought is that character needs to be rooted in our innermost being from the earliest age possible so that is what inevitably shines through. Even through age and illness what I was blessed to benefit from is the ever greater exposition of her kindness, gentleness and contentment with what God had planned for her. 
 
My seven year old reflected on her grandmother’s passing “Nani loved gardens, and now she is going to live in a garden.”
 
In the Islamic tradition, when someone passes away, we quote this verse from the Qur’an:
 
اِنّا لِلّهِ وَاِنّا اِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُون
 
From God we come and to God we return.
 
Please raise your hands for my beloved Mum, that she lives in peace, happiness and His Mercy in the Eternal Garden.

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