PEOPLE LEAVE, BUT DO THEY RETURN?
Leaving is hard. Losing is harder. So a few weeks ago I asked the question, ‘why do people have to
leave each other?’ The answer took me into some of my life’s deepest realizations and struggles.
However, it has also led me to wonder: After people leave, do they ever return? After something we
love is taken from us, does it ever come back? Is loss permanent—or just a means for a higher
purpose? Is loss the End itself, or a temporary cure for our heart’s ailments?
There’s something amazing about this life. The very same worldly attribute that causes us pain is also
what gives us relief: Nothing here lasts. What does that mean? It means that the breathtakingly
beautiful rose in my vase will wither tomorrow. It means that my youth will neglect me. But it also
means that the sadness I feel today will change tomorrow. My pain will die. My laughter won’t last
forever—but neither will my tears. We say this life isn’t perfect. And it isn’t. It isn’t perfectly good.
But, it also isn’t perfectly bad, either.
Allah (glorified is He) tells us in a very profound ayah (verse): “Verily with hardship comes ease.”
(Qur’an, 94:5). Growing up I think I understood this ayah wrongly. I used to think it meant: after
hardship comes ease. In other words, I thought life was made up of good times and bad times. After
the bad times, come the good times. I thought this as if life was either all good or all bad. But that is
not what the ayah is saying. The ayah is saying WITH hardship comes ease. The ease is at the same
time as the hardship. This means that nothing in this life is ever all bad (or all good). In every bad
situation we’re in, there is always something to be grateful for. With hardship, Allah also gives us the
strength and patience to bear it.
If we study the difficult times in our lives, we will see that they were also filled with much good. The
question is—which do we chose to focus on? I think the trap we fall into is rooted in this false belief
that this life can be perfect—perfectly good or perfectly bad. However that’s not the nature of dunya
(this life). That’s the nature of the hereafter. The hereafter is saved for the perfection of things. Jannah
(paradise) is perfectly and completely good. There is no bad in it. And Jahannam (hell—may Allah
protect us) is perfectly and completely bad. There is no good in it.
By not truly understanding this reality, I myself would become consumed by the momentary
circumstances of my life (whether good or bad). I experienced each situation in its full intensity—as
if it was ultimate or would never end. The way I was feeling at the moment transformed the whole
world and everything in it. If I was happy in that moment, past and present, near and far, the entire
universe was good for that moment. As if perfection could exist here. And the same happened with
bad things. A negative state consumed everything. It became the whole world, past and present, the
entire universe was bad for that moment. Because it became my entire universe, I could see nothing
outside of it. Nothing else existed for that moment. If you wronged me today, it was because you no
longer cared about me—not because this was one moment of a string of infinite moments which
happened to be tinted that way, or because you and I and this life just aren’t perfect. What I was
experiencing or feelings at that instant replaced context, because it replaced my entire vision of the
world.
I think in our experiential nature, some of us maybe especially susceptible to this. Perhaps that is the
reason we can fall prey to the “I’ve never seen good from you” phenomenon which the Prophet
(peace be upon him) referred to in his hadith. Perhaps some of us say or feel this way because at that