Lesson 5 of 6 · What makes it harder
The losses inside the loss
One death takes several things with it, and people rarely count them.
Income. The house. The routine of a Sunday. The person you told things to first. Your standing in a family. A future you had already spent years imagining. If it was a parent, sometimes the family itself, because the person who held everybody together is the person who died.
And there is a particular position that gets no attention at all, which is being the one everybody else leans on. The eldest. The one who arranged the janazah, spoke to the hospital, dealt with the paperwork and made sure everybody ate. That person is often still standing three months later because nobody has ever let them sit down.
If that is you, the marker to watch is simple. Nobody has asked you how you are, and you have stopped noticing that nobody has.
There is a report worth having next to that. A man used to bring his small son to sit with him in the Prophet's circle, and would put the child in front of him. The child died, and the man stopped coming, because the circle reminded him and it made him sad. Nobody told him he should not have withdrawn. What happened is that his absence was noticed, he was asked after, and when he was found he was asked about his son.
Qur’an and Sunnah
For the one everybody else leans on. A man stopped coming to the circle after his small son died, and nobody told him he should not have withdrawn. What happened is that his absence was noticed, he was asked after, and when he was found he was asked about his son.
Mu 'awiyah bin Qurrah narrated that his father said:"When the Prophet of Allah sat, some of his Companions would sit with him. Among them was a man who had a little son who used to come to him from behind, and he would make him sit in front of him. He (the child) died, and the man stopped attending the circle because it reminded him of his son, and made him feel sad. The Prophet missed him and said: 'Why do I not see so-and-so?' They said: O Messenger of Allah, his son whom you saw has died.' The Prophet met him and asked him about his son, and he told him that he had died. He offered his condolences and said: 'O son-and-so, which would you like better, to enjoy his company all you life, or to come to any of the gates of Paradise on the Day of Resurrection, and find that he arrived there before you, and he is opening the gate for you?' he said: 'O Prophet of Allah! For him to get to the gate of Paradise before me and open it for me is dearer to me.' He said: 'You will have that
Sunan an-Nasa'i 2088graded sound, albanithe Arabic and its grading