A 5 Year Old Question

srizals

My five year old son is getting inquisitive. He always asked me philosophical questions about life and death and one that intrigued my mind most is when he asked me where we would  go if the earth is destroyed. May be his ustaz or ustazah is telling him about doomsday. I think this simple and honest question can only be answered in the faith of Islam. I told him, when the earth is destroyed, we would all  go to Heaven. A place that cannot be comprehend only by the logic of the mind alone. It must be assist with the sensors of the heart and soul. So many things we cannot see and comprehend and yet they exist. So many huge stars with sizes incomprehensible by the naked mind exist and yet we cannot reach them with our naked eyes. So does the tinniest quark. Matter and anti matter. They exist all around us. Some are seen, many are unseen by the naked eyes.


Ahmad Zharif is five years old now. Next year he will be six, Insya Allah. Sometimes I forget that he was  just a 5 year old boy. When he was born, I was there in the labor room with my wife. Unlike his brother, Ahmad Hasif, who was born like a Superman flying in the sky, he was born unconscious. It was a late delivery. There were umbilical cords around his neck. The nurse was holding him, removing the umbilical cords but he wasn't moving. How can I describe my emotion at that time? It was like being in an empty room, looking at a perfect beautiful baby and yet he was not breathing. But then, some would call it miracle, he coughed as the nurse use a straw like instrument to suck something out from his mouth. His cry was the sweetest cry I've ever heard. And then the nurse gave him to me for me to whisper the Azan and Iqamah into both of his ears. The first two calls/utterances that his ear shall hear and remembered for the rest of his life.


When he was 3 to 4 years old, the major news at that time was about parents accidentally running down their own toddlers. Guess what, even as cautious I tried to be, things could still go wrong. I remembered holding his hand and leading him into the car and closing the door. His brother and sister was closing and opening the door as they were getting in and out to get things they wanted to bring for the trip. And as I was reversing my car, quite fast unlike my usual way, I was in haste and then I caught the glance of a shadow in my side view mirror. I stopped, as did my heart. He was outside! And I can't explain it. I had completely reversed the car and somehow he managed to dodge the car. Looking at his tiny little hands knocking on the window asking to be let in, I was filled with relief. If it was not a miracle, I don't know what it is. I can't imagine if I had run him down on that day. That is why I believe in miracles, daily average miracles happening around us, most are unnoticed by us. How sometimes we were saved and guided, unnoticed, in a normal daily life. Alhamdulillah.