Hi, Salaams, Good morning and Namaste to all!

It is so funny, people saying that I’ll feel lonely and sad due to departure of my youngest daughter after her marriage. It was my greatest wish to see her settled happily in her own home in my lifetime. So, when Allah grants my wish, I’m so grateful to Allah.

I just can’t thank Him enough. Feeling so blessed to know that she found the right life partner with whom she can move on in her life. Knowing she is nearby is enough for me. As a parent it is important for me to stop breathing down her neck, and let go.

We parents must let our little birds fly as high as they like into the world with our blessings! ?

It is natural to feel sad:

Having said that, naturally, you miss their presence in the home. Yet, what is parenting all about? It is to prepare your child for this world. When the time comes, we need to step back and let them fly. Holding on to them, and restricting their flight isn’t fair to them. It isn’t fair to ourselves either.

It is almost like a surgery. Just like when the baby enters our lives, the delivery isn’t easy. It is very difficult. Yet worth it. Then the process of being there to help them grow and provide them the best possible upbringing.

So, just as the cutting of the umbilical cord is necessary, in the same way this move from the parent’s home is necessary for your grown up child.

I’d say the same for a son. In fact, more so for the son.

Refocus on oneself:

It is so important to let them be on their own, to stop being focused on them. Let them find their new ‘partnership’ and their heaven at home. At the same time, it is as important for us parents to start a new life. In my case, I start with the reshuffle of my home to build my new life.

Bring out the dreams.

All those dreams and activities which have been on ‘hold’ for the last few years, can now be brought out. Frankly, I’ve got several books in the pipeline. Lots to learn and share with you all.

Enjoying fruits of my labor:

I feel thrilled to see that the book which I started writing when Nadiya was three months old, and it finally got published by Ferozsons, twenty years later, the Fun Cook Book, is now being used by each of my daughters.

It isn’t just the children. It is also the trees that I had planted eight years ago are blooming in my home now, the Indian Orchid, Kachnar is a burst of pink every April. The magnolia tree produces its lovely huge white flowers every May. The Arecarias are growing taller. My Dhrake tree which is like neem, provides a dense shade at the corner of the road. I love to see weary people sitting under it for a respite in this heat. The bougainvillea along the boundary walls bring splashes of pink, white and orange. The best one is climbing up to the top of the neem tree, with its white and lilac flowers flashing here and there. 

Just love it.

You spend years and years of daily hard work. Then surely the time will come when you will be reeping the harvest of all that hard work.

The human fruits:

Being at a phase in life when I’m able to sit back and watch my three daughters settled in their own homes in different parts of the world. To see them managing their homes and families with love and joy, is itself a joy for me. Yes, these are my fruits, and I’m blessed to live long enough to be able to witness it all.

Alhamdolillah!

The next best thing to motherhood is the joy of being a teacher. Now, I know my students are all over the world, busy in their respective professions. I love watching them and being proud of them.

Meeting Gul Noor lately, was another pleasure. He is teaching Physics in a Super Nova school in Islamabad now.  I had mentioned  him when he was in grade four and I was his teacher there. It was in my ‘story’ in my book published in America, called ‘My Life, My Stories,’

The passing of time, and the changes in life, give one the opportunity to witness the fruits of one’s labor.

Fruits of struggle in courts:

Last night a said a silent prayer for the departed soul of the lawyer who had given a verdict in my favor in the courts. Even though he died in a terrorist attack later, still he had done me the favor of justice. Now, I can sit back and pray for his soul. Unfortunately, the other cases were in the wrong hands. Still optimist that I am, I’m happy that those cases had no verdict, so, if I didn’t lose, they didn’t win either. It could have been worse, a verdict against me, even though it was a clean case. You know how things are in Pakistan.

I mean you know how things are in this world. It isn’t a fair world. We just have to make the best of what we are dished out. We make expensive choices like I did, the giving up of 1135 kanals of lands in our names, for the sake of peace of mind. There are times when we have to make a choice, then leave it to Allah.

Yes, that too is a fruit of labor to choose peace over war. Then being ready to pay the price for it too.

Charity work is my ‘thank You’ to my Allah:

All the little efforts I make are my humble offerings to my Allah for His blessings.

So that is what it is!

We, as humans, we humans have to just do our bit. Then leave the results to Allah. If we are lucky, we shall live to see the results of our hard work. Even if we don’t, at least we shall know that we did our best in the circumstances given to us.

That is enough!

Stay blessed, my Reader. ?