Ah The Elderly

Unfortunately I don’t have many elderly around me. My grandparents on my fathers side passed away quite some time ago-my grandmother on my fathers side passed away when my father was young and my grandfather on my fathers side passed away when I was a little girl. My grandparents on my mothers side are alive, hamdulillah, but they live all the way in California and I can barely see them. I always wish that my grandparents were here, so that I could help them out or even juss listen to their stories. It sounds a little strange but I always love listening to the elderly talk about “back in the day,” stories about when they were kids. We should respect the elderly, and realize what an honor it really is to be able to take care of them. To have the elderly present in your home shouldn’t be thought of as a burden, rather it should be thought of as a blessing from Allah. It is written in the Qur’an, “Your Lord has commanded that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to your parents. If one or both of them reach old age with you, do not say to them a word of disrespect, or scold them, but say a generous word to them. And act humbly to them in mercy, and say, ‘My Lord, have mercy on them, since they cared for me when I was small.” (17: 23-24) It makes me so sad when I see nursing homes, how kids, or adults rather, today simply send their parents off to nursing homes and see them about once or twice a year. Our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) advised us to be kind towards the elderly. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Any young person who is kind to an elderly because of his age, Allah will send him someone who will be kind to him when he becomes old [Tarmazi].” You know how when we were little we were always told “Treat others as you would like to be treated,” well we should be in this mindset all the time. Something we tend to forget to do is to put ourselves in others shoes. Imagine being old, like really old, would you want your child or children to say “Ok thanks for everything, take care and go have fun with all the other elderly in your new nursing home.”

Any way… the reason I thought of this is because today I was outside cleaning my car and my parents cars and I saw my neighbor come outside. Next door to us lives this elderly couple, Victor and Barbra, they’re so sweet and ever since I was little I would go say hi to them and talk to them. When I’m outside and when I see them I go up to them say hi and talk to them for a bit. I really do love talking to them, it’s so interesting to listen to them and their inputs, they’re such nice people. Today when I saw them Victor, or Uncle Victor as my father has taught us to call him, he said “You are like my grand daughter and you still look like a little girl to me.” I realized that hamdulillah, my family has done a good job, we treat our neighbors like family and they treat us like family too, in fact they treat me better than some of my family members. I remember last year when I graduated from high school they sent me a card and a gift congratulating me on graduating high school. When I talk to the lady she always gives me amazing advice that really helps me out- she is a retired teacher, and I would like to be a teacher inshaAllah, so it’s very helpful to hear her input. It’s really nice to have them as neighbors and there were also other elderly people that lived in our neighborhood who were also very nice. The thing I love the most about this lady is that she is so open minded and she was telling  me how she is so proud that I dress the way that I do (hijaab and jilbaab) even though it may be hard to do it in the town that we live in-a pretty white town, or as she said “plain mayo and white bread is all you see around here.” I always enjoy talking to her and in the end she always advises me to read a book, this time she advised me to read, “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” I’ve read a part of it, I’m gunna have to go hit up the library pretty soon.

I really like my neghborhood, hamdulillah I have such great neighbors- they’re always there if we need help or anything and hamdulillah my parents have such a great relationship with them. Our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “The rights of the neighbor is that, when he is sick you visit him; when he dies, you go to his funeral; when he is poor you lend him (money); when he is in need you protect him; when he is in happiness you congratulate him; when he is struck with a calamity, you condole him; don’t raise your building above his to cut off the wind from him; don’t harm him with the good smell of your food unless you let him have part of it” [Tabarani]. SubhanAllah that hadith pretty much outlines how we should be interacting with our neighbors. My parents always check up on our neighbors and because of that they do the same, it’s a good feeling that there are still people that care for one another. We live in a society where tempers can’t be controlled, where family can’t tolerate each other and where compassion and sympathy for one another is at an all time low. Knowing that the people next to you, behind you, in front and even across from you are there for you when you may need help is a very good feeling. The family that lives across the street from my house came up with this neat idea last summer, they came up with something called movie night. Each weekend or so that family sets up this huge screen and plays a movie, and all of the neighbors get together and bring food and chat amongst each other catching up and talking about whats going on. When I first heard about it I juss thought, subhanAllah, and when you see how much work the family puts in for these nights its really a cool thing. They go through the trouble with putting up the big screen, setting up an extra tent for all of the food, setting up the back yard, making sure everyone’s comfortable-its juss amazing to see how great these people are. I’m so thankful for the neighborhood that I live in, and that my parents follow the Sunnah especially in their interaction with our neighbors. So if you have neighbors try to check up on them every so often, take a plate of food introduce yourself to them-but don’t scare them and constantly show up that might be a little scary. It’ll make the Ummah look a little better and what an amazing dawah opportunity. You’ll have friends who can defend Islam, they’ll see the way you act and you can break some misconceptions. There is such a big gap between people who are different. We the Muslims are the “different people” and we make up the majority of the gap; and the only way we can fix it is if we put ourselves out there and educate people. Who knows maybe inshaAllah we can end this Islamaphobia

Take care inshaAllah.

-radf

Allahumma sali ala sayyidina muhammadin an-Nabbiyil ummiyi Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim.