Trust Me (An Islamic Love Story)

Epilogue

I was afraid that as the days would go on, everything would go back to the way it was. I was afraid that Azar and I would get bored and tired of each other, but the next few weeks proved my fears completely wrong. I can feel day by day, the enveloping comfort and safety from outside and within me increasing, and everything I wanted to escape moving finally further from me. I feel more real than I ever have, despite how hectic our life is between work and family.

When I see Azar in Ahraam for the first time, something shifts within my heart. The sight reminds me of the repetitive dream where the light had shone out of his chest. When I had decided to marry him, I had trusted a dream over reality, a delusion over the harsh truth. It seemed silly to do so, but in the end, it was a leap of faith. It was hope in something better because the same Creator that brings about darkness, brings about light.

Laying my eyes on the Ka'abah with Azar by my side, I pray for us to be together at the final end too, at eternal peace. I pray for all the beautiful souls that touched me and have parted this world, and I pray and pray till my heart is full.

It is true that pain teaches you things that nothing else can. Yet I refused to follow pain and make lessons out of hearts. I did not want to worship it, hold it as guidance, and spread it. I ran and ran away from pain I have always as much as I can. The only One who has the right to give me pain is the One who made me, who has a plan and doesn't have greed for breaking hearts; who actually knows how to turn pain into lesson.

This life has taught me that humans can bring about death but they can never bring about life. They can cause pain but they cannot turn it into a lesson. Only the One who created life out of death can create lesson and growth out of misery. Raheesh expected himself to be the god of me. He wanted me to not only spare his being but to praise and be thankful to him because he wished to teach me some twisted lesson. How can I accept his poison when he doesn't know how to make an antidote? How can I believe in his power that he was instilling in me a strength from the wounds he inflicted when he can't even learn a lesson from what he contains within?

I will never love the thorns that he set in my path. I will hate them always, but I am grateful for Allah so loving that He turns all thorns into roses. If I let Raheesh, if I continue to let his pain reach me and break me, the only lesson I will learn is how to carry his pain to someone else, telling them his lies I learned. I would turn cold and numb enough to break others, enough to say no pain, no gain.

I wish Raheesh had stopped trying to write my story, yet even in his death, Shaitaan continues to try, but it is okay. Because the pain that I cannot escape, I will take it to the Creator to aflame a kinder heart from my remains.

Endure. Embrace. And wait. Wait till you meet your Lord. All the suffering will be worth it.

Trust me.