By the time I sat on the third bench outside the hospital that morning, everything inside me felt hollow.
One week. That’s how long it had been since Hamza had gone into emergency surgery. One week of updates that told us nothing. One week of sitting, waiting, praying. And silence. So much silence in response to the only dua I kept repeating. “Ya Allah, please bring my brother back to me.”
I kept telling myself sabr meant more than waiting with folded hands. It meant trusting without signs. It meant hope even when my heart was cracking. But no amount of reminding helped that morning. My hands trembled as I took out my prayer beads, running them between my fingers like they might plug the leaking worry from my chest.
“Ya Sabur,” I whispered. The Most Patient. I wondered how Allah’s patience held up with someone like me—restless, exhausted, spiraling into doubt.
A brittle wind swept across the hospital grounds. A woman with a baby bundled tight stepped out of the building and paused near the bench. She didn’t look at me, just adjusted the blanket around the child’s feet. Then the baby yawned and smiled in that way babies do, not knowing the world could break your heart.
I looked away quickly, but something inside me stilled.
Hamza had once held a baby just like that—our cousin’s daughter. I remembered his loud, clumsy laugh when she grabbed his beard and squealed. He had always believed good would win. Even in his final text before the surgery, he told me, “Tawakkul — let Allah steer.”
I used to believe that, too.
But now I sat outside the same hospital every day with no change. All I had was a repetitive silence… and this unbearable waiting.
The woman with the baby turned to leave. She didn’t say anything, just nodded gently, like she saw everything I held back in the small twist of my mouth and avoided eyes. And somehow, her silence didn’t feel like abandonment.
After they disappeared down the corridor, I looked up at the sky. Pale light filtering through gray — not sun, not rain. Somewhere in between.
And it came to me, like a voice I’d forgotten I had inside.
“O you who have believed, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient.”
Surah Al-Baqarah. Ayah 153.
The verse dipped into my chest like soft linen. How many times had I heard it? But today, it wasn’t coming from a khutbah I half-listened to or a class I used to attend with Hamza. It came from somewhere deeper. Like it had always been there, waiting for me to remember.
Allah is with the patient.
I blinked slowly. Maybe the waiting wasn’t a punishment. Maybe it simply was the space where faith grew roots. Quietly. Beyond what I could see.
When I finally stood, I didn’t feel stronger, just less brittle. The kind of stillness that comes after a long storm when the trees stop thrashing and rest into the wind.
Back inside, the nurse gave me the same smile. “Still stable. No changes yet. But he’s fighting.”
I nodded.
I would, too.
One step at a time. One whispered dua at a time.
We were not forgotten.
We were being held.
---
Relevant Qur’an Verses:
By the time I sat on the third bench outside the hospital that morning, everything inside me felt hollow.
One week. That’s how long it had been since Hamza had gone into emergency surgery. One week of updates that told us nothing. One week of sitting, waiting, praying. And silence. So much silence in response to the only dua I kept repeating. “Ya Allah, please bring my brother back to me.”
I kept telling myself sabr meant more than waiting with folded hands. It meant trusting without signs. It meant hope even when my heart was cracking. But no amount of reminding helped that morning. My hands trembled as I took out my prayer beads, running them between my fingers like they might plug the leaking worry from my chest.
“Ya Sabur,” I whispered. The Most Patient. I wondered how Allah’s patience held up with someone like me—restless, exhausted, spiraling into doubt.
A brittle wind swept across the hospital grounds. A woman with a baby bundled tight stepped out of the building and paused near the bench. She didn’t look at me, just adjusted the blanket around the child’s feet. Then the baby yawned and smiled in that way babies do, not knowing the world could break your heart.
I looked away quickly, but something inside me stilled.
Hamza had once held a baby just like that—our cousin’s daughter. I remembered his loud, clumsy laugh when she grabbed his beard and squealed. He had always believed good would win. Even in his final text before the surgery, he told me, “Tawakkul — let Allah steer.”
I used to believe that, too.
But now I sat outside the same hospital every day with no change. All I had was a repetitive silence… and this unbearable waiting.
The woman with the baby turned to leave. She didn’t say anything, just nodded gently, like she saw everything I held back in the small twist of my mouth and avoided eyes. And somehow, her silence didn’t feel like abandonment.
After they disappeared down the corridor, I looked up at the sky. Pale light filtering through gray — not sun, not rain. Somewhere in between.
And it came to me, like a voice I’d forgotten I had inside.
“O you who have believed, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient.”
Surah Al-Baqarah. Ayah 153.
The verse dipped into my chest like soft linen. How many times had I heard it? But today, it wasn’t coming from a khutbah I half-listened to or a class I used to attend with Hamza. It came from somewhere deeper. Like it had always been there, waiting for me to remember.
Allah is with the patient.
I blinked slowly. Maybe the waiting wasn’t a punishment. Maybe it simply was the space where faith grew roots. Quietly. Beyond what I could see.
When I finally stood, I didn’t feel stronger, just less brittle. The kind of stillness that comes after a long storm when the trees stop thrashing and rest into the wind.
Back inside, the nurse gave me the same smile. “Still stable. No changes yet. But he’s fighting.”
I nodded.
I would, too.
One step at a time. One whispered dua at a time.
We were not forgotten.
We were being held.
---
Relevant Qur’an Verses:
