The Nearest Heaven

Part 9 -Bad Luck Comes in Threes

Part 9 – Bad Luck Comes in Threes

"Al-Miqdam ibn Al-Aswad reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, would come during the night and he would greet with peace such that those who were sleeping would not be awakened but those who were awake would hear it."

~Bukhari

A gasp escaped Fadiyah as she fell to her knees, the tears running down her cheeks in streams. Her phone slipped from her fingers, but she was unconcerned with it at the time. She was shell shocked, wrapped up in a thick cloud of misery and disbelief. Fadiyah remained unresponsive to Faraaz's panicked calls for her, as she rocked herself back and forth.

Faraaz growled angrily as his frustration at himself grew and caused him to only loathe himself more. He was at an utter loss. There was no way that he could move his body and help her, to reach out to her and comfort her. Instead, he did the only thing that he could -relied on someone else to do what he should. "Speak to her Aaban," he sighed hopelessly, but his concern and fear for Fadiyah was evident. "But do it gently, okay, big guy? We don't know what she heard."

Aaban nodded and approached Fadiyah like she was a wounded animal. "Diyah?" he called in his adorable, little voice. His worry was clear in his tone. "What's wrong? What happened?" He wrapped an arm around her. "Why are you crying?" he prodded as he hugged her too his tiny body.

As if she woke up from a trance, Fadiyah wrapped her arms around Aaban and pulled him into her lap as she sat on the floor and kept her arms around him as if he were her anchor to sanity and reality. "My parents passed away, little man," she whispered, but it was loud enough for Faraaz to hear. Her voice was scratchy from all the tears and sobs that she held in.

Her words shocked everyone in the room, Faraaz quickly read the dua for when a loss occurs and stared at her, unable to say anything. He was reliving his own near death experience, as well as the death of his own mother. It was Aaban who broke the silence. "I'm sorry, Diyah," he cried and buried his head in her chest. "May Allah grant them Jannah."

It was at that moment that Fadiyah realised that Aaban was much smarter than the other children his age, and he was more mature than her at present. She wiped her tears and used her one hand to rub soothing circles into his back.

"My parents passed away," Fadiyah told him emotionlessly, detached.

He gulped and sat down next to her. Quietly, he read the dua that Faraaz had. "May Allah grant them forgiveness for all their shortcomings and grant them the highest stages of Jannah, In Shaa Allah."

"Ameen," she said softly and leaned her head against Aaban.

"What happened?" he asked, then realised that the topic may be quite sensitive still. "Wait," he interjected quickly. "You don't have to answer if it is too personal."

Fadiyah lifted her head and shook it, indicating that it was no worry for her. Idly, she played with Aaban's curls on his head as she spoke. "They were pilots, and their plane crashed." It was as if saying it in an emotionless, toneless way would make it any less real. As if it would take away and soothe the pain in her heart.

Death ripped a hole so deep, so far-reaching that there was no balm for it. It left a gaping hole, a soul tearing hole in it, that nothing and no one could ever fill again. It left a jagged scar on your heart that takes years to even lightly scab over. There was no overnight remedy to mask the pain and function normally.

"According to the call from the airline company that they worked for, there was some sort of engine malfunction which caused it to fail and they tried their best to control the landing but somehow it just did a nosedive and killed them all on impact. No survivors."