Three days a week my mum goes to hospital and spends four hours on a dialysis machine. Each time a taxi picks her up and makes the rounds to pick some other patients up to drop them off to the hospital for their session. Every week there is always news of another death on the dialysis ward, each time causing surprise, "What that nice chubby-ish lady that used to sit next to you?" or "Gosh that guy with no legs?" and each time sending a shiver up your spine, whose next...?
One day my mum came home with a story which I found really sad but greatly reflects how we all feel in life at times, if not most of the time. The taxi was doing his usual rounds and stops at a house of an elderly lady, and after waiting ten minutes for her, he decided to go knock on her door. The door was opened by the lady's son, who was quite distraught, and tells the taxi driver
"She just doesn't want to go today, she said she won't go anymore, she has had enough, I have been trying to convince her but she is just refusing to go!"
So keeping in mind, that not doing even one dialysis session can be quite life threatening for these patients, and eventually would cause death in a short period, with a build up of water in the lungs and toxins. This lady was refusing to keep herself alive and I could understand her feeling, from witnessing what my mum goes through on a daily basis. Always feeling unwell, awake all night because of other pains and aches, even having to sit there for hours, waiting for a machine to do the job of your kidneys, isn't that the worst thing? That your body is so broken down, a machine has to keep it going. Is that body really worth living? Perhaps this was her feeling at the time.
We are fortunate as Muslims to have Islam to bring us hope. That every disease, pain or health condition is a way of forgiveness of our sins, that everything is for a reason which Allah knows best and of course in everything we must keep patience. My mum is the most patient person in the world. Although even she gets fed up, after spending two weeks in hospital now (for another illness!), whereas I would have had it by the first few days! Our body is just a vehicle, we do not own it, we have only borrowed it for a short time. Therefore, we do not have the choice to end its life, as it does not belong to us anyway. Nor do we have the right to mis-use it, intoxicate it, which reminds of a time when someone used to tell me that they wish they could just get drunk and forget (lol!). Like any vehicle it may break down, part by part, but what we must remember, is that it is merely a form of transport, to get us from one destination to another, and inshallah whatever we are suffering in this journey, the destination is what will make it all worth while, so long as we remain patient with what Allah has decreed for us.
