Wafa,

This year, the 30th day of Ramadan marked the eleventh year of your departure. How time flies! How life has changed...

I'm mother to a two-year-old,  I've had a miscarriage, I'm yet to complete my masters. Your parents have moved to a new home, your paternal grandmother passed away, your sister is getting married...  So much has happened.

Yet, the mind has a way of bringing back the past. I wouldn't say you are always on my mind-- at times, life gets to me in such a way that I don't even know what's on my mind anymore. But I'm not saying that I've forgotten you, either. I remember everything. I remember it all a bit too well. That last year, when I visited you every weekend, when I filled you in on what's happening at school, when we ate in your room as you couldn't walk to the dining room, when you told me that you didn't cry for fear of hurting your mom, when you showed me the present you got for Ayisha's birthday (that she received a week after you left), when I gave you your medicine, when we prayed together... Everything. And even now, eleven years later, when I talk to someone of you, my eyes continue to well up. Because, in the end, dear friend, I miss you. I miss us. You stand for a part of my life that's no longer coming back. You are a symbol of the childhood and innocence that I keep longing for. The purity of our friendship-- no conditions, no demands, no fall-offs... I miss it all. Life would have been so different if you were still with us. But who are we to question what Allah, in His infinite wisdom, has decreed?

Perhaps, in Jannah, I can introduce you to my lost baby. In sha Allah...