Purview of Ramadan

It’s Ramadan Month and it is the ninth month of the Muslim Calendar. It is the holiest month of the year according to Islam, and is without doubt described by many Muslims as the hardest month of the year.

It is during this month that Muslims fast and lasts the entire month. It is the time when Muslims concentrate on their faith and spend less time on the concerns of their everyday lives. It is a time of worship and contemplation and strict restraints are placed on their daily lives.

They are not allowed to eat or drink during the daylight hours. Smoking and sexual relations are also forbidden during fasting. The fast is resumed the next morning and one may eat and drink at any time during the night until you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daylight, then keep the fast until night.

We, the non - Muslims pay full respect on what they used to practice and avert ourselves from doing wanton acts which maybe offensive on their Islam beliefs. They abstain themselves from any form of earthly pleasures, vices and curbing evil intentions and desires regarded as an act of obedience and a way to repent their sins and cleanse their souls. I have taken some excerpts as shown below which may be helpful for us to widen our understanding on what Ramadan constitutes:

* Abstaining from just food, drink, smoking, and sex. This is the basic level, which is ok but doesn’t carry with it much reward or benefit or purification.

* In addition to lying, backbiting, fighting, cursing…etc. In this level, the eyes abstain from looking at what is forbidden to look at (e.g., the private parts of a non-related man or woman), the ears abstain from what is forbidden to hear (e.g., eavesdropping, gossip, backbiting), the hands abstain from the forbidden (e.g., taking bribes, taking another’s possessions without permission, hitting someone unjustly), and the feet abstain from walking to where it is forbidden to walk (like bars). This is the second broad level, and carries with it a greater magnitude of resultant purity and sublimity. Most Muslims fall in this level or the previous one.

* Doing all of the above, in addition to maintaining a meditative or contemplative state of mind, in such a way that the heart and intellect “fast” from thinking of or reflecting upon anything besides God Himself. This is the level reached and occupied by saints.

During Ramadan, the office hours starts at 10am and ends at 4pm. The stores, malls and restaurants are close and it opens in the evening till 3am. Few days to go we will have 10days Eid vacation and we've got more time to visit friends, relatives, love ones and other places that we haven't seen.

In this most sacred month, Muslims feel the peace that comes from spiritual devotion as well as kinship with fellow believers and for us who are not Muslims it’s a perfect time for us to contemplate and rebirth our relationships to God.

Loving You is Lasting

Time is fleeting. There is nothing perpetual in this world and everything has its end. Important persons in our lives which we dearly and deeply love may pass in various ways. Others will leave in search for happiness, luck and good future. Some will depart ways by breaking the bonding to realize their worth and finally seek what they’re heart longs for. And what’s more distressing and heartbreaking to know if somebody has to leave because of unbearable sickness which you knew eventually will lead to someone’s death. Some easily accepts the reality of death but for others it is an infuriating subject to talk about for a reason that they’re simply not prepared or has not completed yet their purpose in life. It is also because the inevitability and finality of death was one of the more disturbing of many troubling questions which is quite hard to accept.

Much of the pain of death for the living comes from a sense of loss. Death is undoubtedly a subject which I avert to share my points of view in a discussion. Losing my loving sister because of her stage 4 lung cancer is absolutely a setback to my family more so to her young kids. When I had my vacation to Philippines it was she that I long for to see. When I saw my sis I hug her tight and my tears begun to fall on her shoulder because of years that were physically afar. My tears fell continuously as I was staring at her fragile body which was consummated by her terminal cancer. I have witnessed her courage in fighting to survive from cancer for the sake of her young handsome kids. Though she was in inexplicable anguish pain, she never showed to us her fragility in dealing with her disease but rather she was so determined to surpass her ordeal and be with her kids till they finally fulfill their dreams.

I never had a pinch of regret when I spent most of my vacation in the hospital to look after my sister and deferred leisure which I could have enjoyed as a treat to myself after years of being afar from my family. But the thought of that never crossed my mind for my foremost priority then is to spend my time and attend to her medical needs. Gone are the days, her condition became serious which was manifested with the losing of hair and intermittent seizure. Days passed we’re becoming afraid that she might not surpass her depressing predicament but we the spectators of her condition are in denial that she’ll be able to recuperate and regain her hopes to live a longer life.

Time has come that I need to go back abroad and it was indeed a saddening moment to leave my sister. Before I bid my goodbye, I whispered to her how much that I love her and promised that I would take good care of her children and exceed the love she had shown to them as a single mother. I should have not leaved her. I should have stayed till her last breath. My conscience keeps haunting me. Until now I couldn’t accept the fact that she has passed away and I won’t have a sister that I could count on.

I have realized that we should not wait for a serious situation comes in to express our love. Say I love you as often as you could and show it by means of doing good deeds to your family, to your love one and to the special persons closest to us.

The passing of my sister marks an end to all the possibilities both for us and for the departed that might have been realized by a longer life. I have realized that I must recognize that we have no measure by which we can judge whether it was better for her to have lived a longer or that matter a shorter life.

Today, August 29 is her birthday and i know that its quite different for my family especially to her kids to celebrate my sister's bday withouth her real presence. Despite of that, members of my family remembered this special occasion and prepared native delicacies as she always wanted to have during her bday.

Wherever she was now, I would like to let her know that I LOVE HER SO MUCH and MY LOVE WILL NEVER FADE AND IT WILL FOREVER BE LASTING.