The last message Amin sent me was nothing special—just a check-in, a simple "How's work going?" on a Monday morning.
He didn’t know I had already cried in sujood the night before, asking Allah to give us a sign, to make it easier if it wasn’t meant to be. We’d been talking about marriage for months, thick with plans and promises. But hidden under all that was a slow decay—unspoken doubts, his silences. And somewhere, I think I already knew.
Three days after that message, he broke it off.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no betrayal, no explosion. Just a call at sunset, his voice soft, final. “I’ve prayed istikhara,” he said. “And my heart doesn’t feel it anymore.”
I couldn't breathe.
The days that followed blurred. My limbs moved, but I don’t remember where they took me—probably work, the grocery store, home. But my soul stayed lodged in that evening light where he left me, sitting quietly under the weight of a prayer I didn’t understand the answer to.
And so I waited.
Waited to stop crying in the middle of the night. Waited to feel anger or clarity—some strong thing that would break the numbness. But nothing came. Just silence.
So I did the only thing I could. I sat on the musalla after Fajr one morning, my heart brittle and bruised, and I whispered, “Ya Allah, I don't understand. But keep me close. Just… don’t leave me.”
That became my only dua. Not for him to come back. Not even for answers. Just that: Don’t leave me.
Weeks went by. I fasted Mondays and Thursdays, not with strength, but with a kind of quiet desperation, like maybe hunger would hollow out the ache. I tried memorizing Surah Maryam, because something about her carrying pain with silence and strength felt close.
Still, the bitterness lingered.
Then one morning in early spring, the rain came.
I hadn’t heard about the storm forecast, but I woke to the soft percussion of it beating on the windows. Something about it made me stand still in the kitchen, mug of tea in my hand, just watching.
And I remembered a hadith—a simple one, but it came like a drop of mercy: “Verily, Allah does not delay the matter of the believer except out of mercy.”
I don’t know where I’d heard it. In some lecture, long ago maybe. But in that moment, with the rain washing the earth outside, it felt carved into my chest.
Maybe the delay… was the answer.
Maybe mercy looked like unanswered prayers. Maybe it looked like letting go before something broke me later. Maybe it looked like silence—because had Allah answered with "yes" too quickly, I wouldn’t have learned to whisper that other dua: Don’t leave me.
And He hadn’t.
Even when my fingers scratched at the walls of my own confusion, even when I barely believed in healing—He stayed.
I still don’t know why Amin left. I still don’t know what’s waiting further down the path. But I no longer ask for timelines or signs.
Only that He doesn’t leave.
And every so often now, I catch myself smiling without noticing. The peace comes in fragments, tiny ones. A child’s laughter on the train. The way the sun pours through the masjid window like gold. It is not loud joy, but it is real.
And maybe, finally, I’m learning that heartbreak doesn’t mean you have less of yourself, just that you are being reshaped—made softer by sabr, steadier by tawakkul.
Still whole. Still held.
Still His.
---
Qur'an & Hadith References:
The last message Amin sent me was nothing special—just a check-in, a simple "How's work going?" on a Monday morning.
He didn’t know I had already cried in sujood the night before, asking Allah to give us a sign, to make it easier if it wasn’t meant to be. We’d been talking about marriage for months, thick with plans and promises. But hidden under all that was a slow decay—unspoken doubts, his silences. And somewhere, I think I already knew.
Three days after that message, he broke it off.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no betrayal, no explosion. Just a call at sunset, his voice soft, final. “I’ve prayed istikhara,” he said. “And my heart doesn’t feel it anymore.”
I couldn't breathe.
The days that followed blurred. My limbs moved, but I don’t remember where they took me—probably work, the grocery store, home. But my soul stayed lodged in that evening light where he left me, sitting quietly under the weight of a prayer I didn’t understand the answer to.
And so I waited.
Waited to stop crying in the middle of the night. Waited to feel anger or clarity—some strong thing that would break the numbness. But nothing came. Just silence.
So I did the only thing I could. I sat on the musalla after Fajr one morning, my heart brittle and bruised, and I whispered, “Ya Allah, I don't understand. But keep me close. Just… don’t leave me.”
That became my only dua. Not for him to come back. Not even for answers. Just that: Don’t leave me.
Weeks went by. I fasted Mondays and Thursdays, not with strength, but with a kind of quiet desperation, like maybe hunger would hollow out the ache. I tried memorizing Surah Maryam, because something about her carrying pain with silence and strength felt close.
Still, the bitterness lingered.
Then one morning in early spring, the rain came.
I hadn’t heard about the storm forecast, but I woke to the soft percussion of it beating on the windows. Something about it made me stand still in the kitchen, mug of tea in my hand, just watching.
And I remembered a hadith—a simple one, but it came like a drop of mercy: “Verily, Allah does not delay the matter of the believer except out of mercy.”
I don’t know where I’d heard it. In some lecture, long ago maybe. But in that moment, with the rain washing the earth outside, it felt carved into my chest.
Maybe the delay… was the answer.
Maybe mercy looked like unanswered prayers. Maybe it looked like letting go before something broke me later. Maybe it looked like silence—because had Allah answered with "yes" too quickly, I wouldn’t have learned to whisper that other dua: Don’t leave me.
And He hadn’t.
Even when my fingers scratched at the walls of my own confusion, even when I barely believed in healing—He stayed.
I still don’t know why Amin left. I still don’t know what’s waiting further down the path. But I no longer ask for timelines or signs.
Only that He doesn’t leave.
And every so often now, I catch myself smiling without noticing. The peace comes in fragments, tiny ones. A child’s laughter on the train. The way the sun pours through the masjid window like gold. It is not loud joy, but it is real.
And maybe, finally, I’m learning that heartbreak doesn’t mean you have less of yourself, just that you are being reshaped—made softer by sabr, steadier by tawakkul.
Still whole. Still held.
Still His.
---
Qur'an & Hadith References:
