Love after Loss

Chapter 4 - Cancer

Arsalan

The Lady's brother had waved us over, so the kids and I went over. It was like having my own little ducklings follow me, the duck, playing both mother and father. The Lady had moved out and offered for the kids to go in, which I knew they wanted to do. Aaliyah and the lady sat on the inside and me and Asif opposite to the lady's brother.

"Assalamu alaikum" I said to the brother across from me.

"Wa alaikum assalam" he replied. "I'm Ahmad, Hiba's brother." Masha Allah, Hiba is a beautiful name. It means 'gift'.

"Hiba can be very persuasive sometimes so you'll have to excuse her for that", he said. He's right, she can be.

"Not a problem, the kids seem to love her and she insisted on sitting with you guys so thank you actually for letting us join. I'm Arsalan, this is my son Asif, and that's my daughter Aaliyah. They're twins."

"Masha Allah, twins! You and especially your wife must be very proud!" The kids went silent again. And Hiba and Ahmad definitely noticed. I looked at them and slowly Ahmed asked the very question I was afraid the kids couldn't take.

"Speaking of whom, where is she?" Ahmad asked.

"She isn't with us anymore. Hasn't been for three years now."

The whole table went silent this time, with the only words 'Inalilahi wa ina ilaihi ra'ji'un' being muttered. But as I put a hand on my son's shoulder and go to hug him because I knew he will cry eventually, I saw Hiba already in an embrace with my daughter.

I looked at them again and Asif was mouthing "tell them!" to me. So with a deep breath, I did.

I have said this a couple of times to people now, so I felt ready. I took a deep breath, gulped down a sip of water, and started explaining about how my late wife died.

"Might as well get her story out so we can enjoy the rest of our time." I said, and with that I begun the story of how my wife passed.

"Aizah's ailment was lung cancer." I started. "I haven't really talked about it in front of the kids very much because Alhamdulillah, we got through it at first, but after all of the chemo and radiotherapy and everything... she got to the point where she wasn't sure about continuing treatment.

"At first, the most immediate thing she could do would be to have part of her lung cut off and taken out, but with the NHS and of course any medical organisation they encourage you to take the less invasive approach. Besides, she was heavily against it - not only did she and the doctors feel it was too little at first to take out, but she didn't want part of her lung to be cut off. It was either take a risky minimally invasive procedure to take the tumour the lung without killing her, or chemo. She didn't want to end up with the scar at first, but in the end it was the only option. Or so we thought.

"Because the year afterwards, she relapsed and they found the cancer had metastasised. And of course at that point it was too late to take the whole right lung out. Aizah didn't want anymore of her body to be poked and prodded or cut up. She was very strict in this case, but she also didn't want to die in pain from the medicine and chemicals. She eventually agreed to take a round of chemo to lengthen her time, but she kept on getting sicker and sicker, until ultimately she... she passed." I took another, much larger sip of my water bottle after that. I took a look at the kids. It was getting less hard for them, so it seemed.

Before, Aaliyah would've screamed at my head for mentioning it. And Asif would stop talking altogether for a few hours, tears would flow down his cheeks.
All at the age of 3.

"Alhamdulillah though. My kids are my main focus, they're the reason I get up in the morning. So I can provide them with a life that I never had. And once I took up the motherly duties that their mother was providing, that focus only became stronger."

After the story was finished, I tried to steer the conversation by talking about our careers.

I was very impressed with his watch business, even making his way to being on the Board of Directors for a large hospital group in America, as well as helping start multiple charities too. He seemed to be even more impressed though with me working for Jaguar designing car exteriors. I learned that Hiba once took Interior design too, but from the way her eyes suddenly dropped I didn't ask more about it.

All in all, we were having a great conversation. One thing was weird though - he had his eyebrow raised and kept looking back and forth at me and his sister. So he's maybe he got Hiba figured out on his end.

Maybe he knows what my intentions are. As long as he knows they're good. Otherwise, who knows what could happen?

~~~

Assalamu Alaikum...

A short chapter but the few who read the first few drafts of the story will notice that I have unpublished some parts... just doing some recap and restructuring.

Please let me know what you want to see, I am starting to run into a block so am trying to take it slow but keep it updated.

Until then, may Allah bless you and your families with peace in your life. Ameen.

Assalamu alaikum!