I open my eyes, and I can see. Without conscious intention, I blink moistening the delicate windows through which the world around me is made apparent. For me this has always been possible. But I have a friend afflicted with multiple sclerosis who suffers just to raise her stiffened, bent hand to rub her dry, aching eyes. She is bound to a hospital bed in her home under twenty-four-hour care. Hardly able to sit up, she can only dream of venturing outdoors for a breath of fresh air.
Struck by this disease in adulthood she knows what blessings she can no longer enjoy. Even though the open sky and sunshine tell of the warm spring days to come, she lies confined to gazing from a distance through a window in the four walls that surround her. Patiently she awaits the miracle of a cure.
The trees outside her home barren from the cold of the winter will soon bloom with tiny green leaves and provide shade from the glare of the sun again, but she will not likely sit under one of them anytime soon. Birds silently glide across the solid blue backdrop above coming to rest on the green tops of cedar trees to chirp a soft, sweet song, but she can't hear them over the hum of the machine that pumps air through a plastic tub into a hole in her throat that allows her to keep breathing.
Hardly having any appetite, she prefers not to eat. Feeling full almost immediately because she is unable to move around to use up the calories from the meal, she finds it difficult to finish a small bowl of food. When she did desire a simple bowl of ice cream last summer, eating it compromised her health for days. Her body just cannot deal with the pleasures she used to be able to enjoy.
Once a science teacher, she is now totally incapable of standing in front of a class or holding a piece of chalk. No longer even able to clear her throat without suctioning, she struggles to speak. Once she was someone people would turn to for help, now she fully relies on others. Once capable, now she is not.
Sometimes it overwhelms her, and she cries. But she lives on blessed to have friends and family that support and encourage her with the remembrance that all this is temporary. Everything comes to an end. And if it is a good end, then the next life is everlasting wholeness and happiness. Her morale recovers, and she is able to smile again.
Ever reminded of death, she faces it with courage realizing what so many of us overlook. We are all on the verge of death. When our time comes only then will we depart this world and enter the next. And none of us, whether well or ill, know who will pass on first.
Having lost the ability to read because her eyes cannot focus on the words, a friend reads to her. She loves the Creator and appreciates being reminded of the mercy she has already been given by Him through the example and teachings of Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him) like:
Take advantage of five things before five others happen: your youth before you grow old; your health before you fall sick; your money before you become poor; your leisure before you become busy; and your life before you die.
In the tremendous beauty of her faith, she finds solace. Performing her prayers as fully as she can, she bears her burden with patience. Now more aware than ever of all the blessings she has lived, still has, and hopes for. She is grateful to be a Muslim.
