Paradise at her feet

It was many, many years ago, when I must have been no older than eight. I returned home from school bemused and perplexed. A teacher had quoted the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as saying, "Paradise lies at the feet of the mother". I had a strong urge to argue, to disagree, to question the statement, but I decided to check first. I had a plan.

"Ammi [mother], can I see your feet, please?" I said. She looked confused but sat on a chair anyway and I began examining both her feet. I memorised each line running through the soles of her feet, her toes, toenails — everything.

I was disappointed, for there was no sign of paradise there. In fact, there wasn't even a window through which you could see a garden, as I had hoped. Mum smiled when I told her what I was looking for, but offered no explanations. In my own good time, I would understand.

Mum had a radiant smile and her eyes were almost always lined perfectly with kohl, and her long beautiful and lustrous black hair would sometimes be braided down her back and at times held up in a bun. When she smiled, my world came alight, and her teeth were like pearls against her lips, beautiful as rose petals.

Big shock

It still hasn't sunk in, I'm still in denial about her having left this world. Sometimes I wonder if it's all a nightmare and when I wake, Mum will be there. At other times, as the crowd mills around me, time passes as though in a blur. Why are all these people here, mourning? Surely, it's not true? My own silence invites more tears as I frantically look for a place where I can find her again.

With every passing moment, the void just gets bigger, the pain more intense. Whoever claimed time was a healer? Will time answer all my questions about her? Does she know how sorry I am about the million times I hurt her? Does she know I still smell her wonderful smell? What good is time?

I talk of my mother in the past tense as though I don't see her shining face. I hear her laughter faint yet joyous like the gurgling of a brook. When I listen closely, it's just me — me and my thoughts. I see her happy and healthy, released from the unbearable pain and sickness that plagued her throughout the last year of her life.

To write a fitting obituary would be next to impossible for there are no words in my vocabulary that would do justice to a woman like her. Apart from being very beautiful and having immense culinary expertise, mum had some fine qualities.

She flowed with the milk of human kindness and she never heard a story of someone's pain and despair without making every possible effort to somehow alleviate their suffering. She taught me how generosity, big-heartedness, love and forgiveness can win over the fiercest of adversaries.

Today, as I stand at a crossroads in life, her memories cloud my head — and my eyes. As I grew older, the quote about paradise being at her feet began making sense. One day, despite her protests, I went and kissed her feet. I logically explained it was about paradise, and that even if you couldn't see it, it was there. It soon became a habit, and mum, a humble and shy woman, would feel embarrassed.

The last time I enquired if I could kiss her feet, she lay on the bed, unable to move, with numerous tubes and needles in her body. She nodded. I bent down and kissed them and she smiled.

The next time I saw her she was covered in a shroud, ready to meet her Maker. I kissed her feet. The tears wouldn't stop.

Mehmudah Rehman is a Dubai-based freelance writer.