I Lost My Dad Again

Assalamu alaikum,

When I was little, I used to ask my mum, "What's a dad?"

I didn't know. There wasn't one in our house.

For 23 years, my father and I lived apart. I told myself I didn't need him. He wasn't there for my GCSEs, my A levels, university, my wedding. Why let him in now?

That was my ego talking.

Then my wife fell pregnant. And one thought hit me hard: You're about to become a dad, and you don't even speak to your own.

So I sent a text. "This is your son. Let's talk."

He was happy to hear from me. But I still planned to walk into our first meeting with every hard question I'd carried for years. Where were you? Why did you do that to us?

Then I had a dream. A man held out two coins. One was a hard situation. One was the Qur'an. "Use one to overcome the other."

I was told plainly: don't ask the hard questions.

From that moment, I stopped doing it for me. I stopped doing it for him. I did it only for Allah. If he shouted, if he rejected me, it didn't matter. My feelings weren't the point.

We had seven years together. They weren't easy.

Before I left for Hajj, we hadn't spoken for a year and a half. I turned up at his door at 11pm with my son Isa. He let us in, then tore into me. I got up and left.

At the petrol station, I thought about what Isa had just seen: When things get hard with your father, you run.

So I turned the car around.

That night I massaged his legs, apologised, and promised to visit more. We parted with salams.

That was our last real conversation.

And here's what I never expected. When he was shouting at me, I finally felt like his son. A father doesn't grill a child he doesn't care about.

A few months later, he was gone.

I sat by his hospital bed reading Qur'an and telling him about the childhood he missed. I washed his body. He was buried in just a shroud. My friends drove up from London and climbed into the grave to help me lower him.

I still miss him. A friend told me, "Mubarak. That loss means you achieved what you set out to do."

If there's someone you're struggling to forgive, don't wait for it to feel easy. The reward is for the ones who find it hard and do it anyway.

And if your dad shouts at you sometimes? Be grateful he's there to do it.

Whatever your relationship with your father looks like, this episode gives you something to reflect on.

I wanted to share some of those reflections in this episode.

🎙️ Reflections on Losing My Father — “Put Your Ego Aside”

Please make dua for my father. May Allah have mercy on him, fill his grave with light, and reunite us in Jannah.

Dadhood