Ikea

Yusuf did rozu on Sunday. I am very proud. 

We are having some work done at home and needed to return a bunch of stuff to ikea.  So much stuff that we couldn’t all fit in the car. It was a nice just Yusuf and me morning. We loaded up the car in rozu and were off. We talked and talked. We talked so much that we missed our exit...twice. It was wonderful. 

We got to ikea and unloaded the car for a while and waited a bunch in a couple different lines. Everything was finally successfully returned. 

We made another stop at the pet store nearby. I got to do some pre-Eid Eid shopping. He looked at some turtles and geckos and was pretty excited. 

This was awesome for me. It was such nice time with Yusuf. He noticed it was special too. On the way home he commented that it was a nice time and was glad to be with me. 

Then he said something beautiful that I don’t want to forget. He said we had a wonderful morning and got to spend a bunch of quality time together. He told me to think about all the cars on the road, they’re all on their way from something or to something and many of them are on their way from doing or about to do something special. 

Wow and beautiful!

Taher, listen carefully.  You will hear wise and beautiful things when you don’t expect  

Rozu

 Yesterday, I did my first rozu for Ramadan. Often when I do rozu I get asked, “Rozu lageche?”  My response has almost always been something like no, it’s not hard or no, not at all. 

Yesterday, that wouldn’t have been an honest answer. To start the day, I woke up for namaz, but I overslept and didn’t wake up for sihori. I went back to bed and got some terrible sleep. I got out of bed late and missed seeing the kids before they left for school. I was really late to join a meeting. I had some computer trouble and had a really unproductive day at work. I was low energy all day and having a lot of trouble slowing down for Ramadan which I look forward to every year. My day was a bit off.

I sat on my masala close to maghreb doing Quran and waiting for my rozu to be over. I thought there are literally 1.8 billion other Muslims and many of them also had their first rozu after a while. I was finally having some of Ramadan clarity. There were probably so many people that were waiting to break their fast like I was. 

Each year I spend Ramadan trying to focus on one thing. This year I want to focus my effort on remembering that others have stuff going on and whatever they’re dealing with is more complicated than I know. All those people doing rozu had at least that going on. 

Taher, everyone has something going on and you likely don’t know. 

Vaccine

 I was lucky to get my 2nd vaccine today.  I even traded messages with a friend about planning a trip and return to normalcy.  I can't wait.

I got to my appointment and the site had switched vaccine types and I was getting redirected.  I was stressed out and anxious as I waited not knowing if I'd be able to get my vaccine today even.  I luckily got redirected to another site that same day.  I was a little annoyed because it was 40 minutes away and now I had to drive and wait some more.

I got there and in-line and followed the directions of the many folks that were there trying to do crowd control COVID style.  After a few stations, I got to a table in this large gym where I was gonna get a shot.  The person who gave me the shot proudly had her name tag affixed to her scrubs with band-aids.  Her name tag said she was a doctor and reminded me of how she and all those other people were spending their time for others.  Just today I was in two of these sites where there were hundreds of people working together to get this thing to end.  To think there are many of these people in many thousand of these sites all across the world working for this same thing.  That's looking out for everyone.  That's selflessness on a Saturday.

I came home and just finished watching one of my favorite movies.  I may have seen it a few times before:P  It had something new to me this time.  The people in the story are shut off from the outside world and many just stay home.  In the end, many of them come together against great odds to resist and win.  The story ends on a hopeful note and the main character saying "anyone can be a hero."

Taher, be hopeful and remember that anyone can be a hero.