They Took My Daughter In Mecca…Then Jesus Appeared To Me…
My name is Fatima Nasser.
I am a mother, and what I’m going to tell you today is the most painful and most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me in my life.
I want you to sit down before you read this.
I want you to take a breath because this story is going to take you somewhere you did not expect to go.
It took me somewhere I never expected to go, and I’m still not fully over it.
I do not think I ever will be.
I grew up in a small city in Jordan.
My father was a teacher, and my mother stayed home and took care of us.
We were six children in a small house with two bedrooMs. We were not rich.
We were not poor, either.
We had food.
We had clothes.
We had each other.
My mother woke up every morning before the sun came up and prayed.
My father prayed five times every day without missing once.
I watched them my whole life, and I thought that was what a good life looked like.
You follow the rules.
You pray.
You faSt. You trust God, and things will be okay.
I married a man named Tariq when I was 22 years old.
He was a good man.
A quiet man.
He worked in construction, and he came home tired every night, but he always made time to sit with our daughter Nadia and talk to her.
Nadia was everything to us.
She was born 2 years after we got married, and from the moment I held her in the hospital, I knew she was the most important thing in my life.
She had her father’s eyes and my mother’s smile, and she laughed at everything.
Even small things made her laugh.
A bird outside the window.
A funny face.
She was just a happy child.
Then Tariq got sick.
It started small.
He was tired more than usual.
He lost weight.
He said his stomach hurt.
We went to the doctor, and the doctor sent us to another doctor, and that doctor sent us to another one.
By the time they figured out what was wrong, it was already too late to do much.
Cancer in his stomach and spreading.
The doctors said they could try treatment, but they were not very hopeful.
We tried everything we could afford.
We borrowed money from family.
We sold some things from our home.
Tariq fought hard.
He was not the kind of man to give up, but his body was giving up on him even when his heart was not ready to.
He died on a Thursday morning in the spring.
Nadia was 9 years old.
I cannot describe to you what that morning felt like.
I cannot find the right words even now.
I was sitting beside his bed in the hospital, and I was holding his hand, and then his hand just went still in mine.
Just still.
Like something left the room.
Like the air changed.
And I sat there for a long time just holding his hand even though I knew he was already gone.
The nurses had to come and gently ask me to let go.
Nadia was at home with my mother when it happened.
I had to come home and tell her.
That was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
Harder than anything.
She was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast, and she looked up at me when I came in, and I think she already knew from my face.
She did not say anything.
She just started crying.
And I held her there in that kitchen for a long time, both of us crying, while my mother stood in the corner with her hand over her mouth trying to hold herself together for us.
After Tariq died, our house felt empty in a way I had never felt before.
Like a piece of the building itself had been removed.
His shoes by the door.
His jacket on the hook.
His cup that he always used for his tea in the morning.
Everything reminded me of him.
I tried to be strong for Nadia, but there were nights I cried so hard I could not breathe.
And I could hear sometimes through the thin wall between our rooms that Nadia was crying, too.
We were both loSt. I threw myself into prayer.
I read the Quran every day.
I fasted extra days beyond what was required.
I went to the mosque more than I ever had in my life.
I was looking for something.
Some kind of peace.
Some kind of sign that things would be okay.
That God was still there.
That Tariq was in a good place.
That my daughter and I would be all right.
I wanted to feel something that told me all the suffering had a purpose.
But no matter how much I prayed, the emptiness stayed.