Rabi…My rainbow of the night, not so fast!

How can the snail leave its shell for a journey of no return? Rabi, my rainbow of the night—it’s hard to believe that you are forever gone!
I am lonely, stranded and empty. I spin in void as I wander aimlessly in search of the futility of life. What is the essence of the skin when the rains will pierce the body mercilessly? Just when I was to hold you in blissful embrace while you cuddle the bundle of our joy, death came calling with unimaginable rapidity and my Rabi…the rainbow of the night dimmed her glittering light and bid us goodnight instead of goodbye.
The cherished desire of every woman is to hold her baby, look into his eyes and whisper sweet motherly symphonies, but nature didn’t permit you to lift your baby…your very first baby as a woman!  Allahu Akbar my Rabi the rainbow of the night is gone. You left too furiously, you sailed too early my dear wife, leaving me bared, stranded and sullen.
The house is empty as the peace that you decorated it with is now elusive. Eerie presence is now the occupant of my heart. The shadows are in perpetual contest of their torments. Footsteps that are never seen now play in mockery of my loneliness.
It’s hard not to grieve over your untimely passage, for how do I wake up and not find you by my side? My voice is dumb the same way my limbs are numb. I struggle to extricate myself from the pains of your death, but like the inevitable rise of the sun I find my memories recreating every moments we spent together.
Submitting to the will of Allah has been my refuge lately. For he has decreed that every soul shall taste death and there is the provision for an eternal reunion in the hereafter. That is now my solace, I shall continue to pray for you my wife, the mother of my child whose innocent eyes kept asking about the whereabouts of his mother. A mother he shall only be told of and not lived with.
We named him Ibrahim after your dear father; remember that was your exact suggestion! He shall grow up to get the love I couldn’t give you, the affection I couldn’t shower you, the adoration you couldn’t get because death came too early and so fast. Inshaa Allah he is going to grow up to live in your image. For you were a friend never to be traded, a companion to cherish forever and a wife to hold on to eternally. Indeed, Kullu Nafsin Zaikatul Mautu (every soul shall taste of death).
Dear readers, about a month ago, one of the brightest stars in my life faded away into the darkness. Today I am reflecting on my memories of her, and what she left behind. Like a trance, I remember her last dying month as she labored in pains from the excruciating agony of childbirth. My wife suffered and endured her nine month period of pregnancy. No week passes without a visit to the hospital. You could feel her torturous endurance even as she tried to hide her pains.
At the 9th month in preparatory for delivery, she became unusually boisterous and all lively. The labor pains came and she was wheeled to the labour room as we waited in bated breath the birth of Ibrahim. The baby came but not without claiming its casualty. Rabi became instantly paled and her palms were as cold as death. I felt the presence of death lurking around, but I was too dazed to be logical. Through the knife of the surgeons, the baby cried out and he was borne. Weakly Rabi smiled at me and the baby, suggesting that she had borne me my first baby and then the inevitable happened as she relapsed what would eventually become an eternal sleep. Rabi bled to death as the doctors tried all they could to save her innocent life.
This is a lamentable tribute from a weak heart to a strong wife who gave her tomorrow for the life her baby and the happiness of her husband. May Allah make Aljanatul Firdausi your eternal abode. Goodnight my rainbow of the night.
Musa wrote in from Ganges Street, Maitama Abuja.