大象传媒

My nephew became a dad yesterday - with his partner giving birth to a healthy baby boy.

The entire family is overjoyed. The birth is the first from that generation - so my sister is a Grandmother, and I鈥檓 now a Great Aunt!听 It would also have made my Mum a 鈥淕reat鈥� Grandma 鈥� and she would have really loved that. I can hear her exclaim: 鈥淎听Great听Grandma, Sarah! Goodness me! How wonderful!鈥�

But she isn鈥檛 here with us鈥� And so, like every joy experienced since her passing, there is sadness, which catches you amidst the fullness of the happiness and delight.

There is a wonderful children鈥檚 film from a few years back called Inside Out. It鈥檚 about a young girl called Riley, who is uprooted from her happy life to move to the city. Her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness 鈥� come with her too. Often, I think we focus of having Joy in our lives (because let鈥檚 face it, it is the most enjoyable of those emotions!) 鈥� but the story is how she becomes aware of them all, and how important they all are for a full and mature life.

I will confess to being someone who used to set aside difficult emotions. Simply - there wasn鈥檛 time or energy or room to deal with them all in the moment. But now, since Mum鈥檚 passing, I seem to manage to feel all sorts of emotions 鈥� all at once. And I like it. It鈥檚 richer, and deeper somehow.听

Islam鈥檚 central tenet is belief in The Absolute Oneness of God, The One. Reunion with The Unity is the ultimate aspiration.听

I find being able to feel such richness of emotion simultaneously has granted me a degree of wholeness which has made contemplating the unity of God deeper and more profound.

I like to think that my Mum is in another realm and knows what鈥檚 going on. Maybe the new baby boy was just in that other realm, maybe he was even with her, maybe she knew him even before we did. I don鈥檛 profess to know how it all works! But I do believe everything is connected.听

听

It鈥檚 hard to say sometimes where sorrow ends and joy begins, but being able to experience them together, amidst the transience of life, is powerful, I find. As Rumi puts it, 鈥淚f you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest friend in your life's search for love and wisdom.鈥�