top of page
Writer's picture: Shaamiela SafodienShaamiela Safodien

I have never seen a woman in process get free without first getting angry. She must anger, and she may need to rage, the rage is especially freeing.


This is what I see when she does not:


  • She bypasses to sadness, nurtures her wounds and melancholy, and depression becomes a way of being.

  • She masquerades as the good girl, a step away from taking a stand or behaving cuttingly; only to return to her well-worn path of good girl things, accompanied by guilt.

  • She subverts her feminine, carrying her masculine as fencing, shocking the hand that reaches or wants to give, with unexpressed grief as her constant companion.


She may cycle between these.


All of these carry an unspoken need for permission to exist more fully. To exist within her anger as much as her kindness, her rage as much as her compassion.


Rage especially the nice ones, anger especially the pleasing ones.


There is no harm in this, only liberation. Anger is the indicator that your boundary has been crossed, that something has occurred which you did not consent to. Rage can be our indicator that there was a great violation, and we were not protected.


The current collective embracing of anger and rage as we watch parts of the world and human beings burn, polluted and exploited is the reclamation of this feminine wholeness (this is not exclusive to women). Where both love and anger are sacred and respected, equally able to inform us and move us into conscious action.


“In her instinctual psyche, a woman has the power, when provoked, to be angry in a mindful way-and that is powerful. Anger is one of her innate ways to begin to reach out to create and preserve the balances that she holds dear, all that she truly loves. It is both her right, and at certain times and in certain circumstances a moral duty.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With the Wolves)


To anger and to rage means to fully enter the breadth and depth of your life and own all parts of yourself. There cannot be true healing without it.


Free yourself dear feminine, so you and our daughters can witness, taste, smell, feel and touch wholeness.

Writer's picture: Shaamiela SafodienShaamiela Safodien

One year ago, on 23 August 2012 I watched my mother being wheeled out in a wheelchair at the airport. My parents had just returned home from Umrah (mini pilgrimage). My mother looked incredibly ill. She left for Umrah in pain and returned with it amplified.


I looked at her and I knew.


For the rest of the day, I remained detached, this is what happens for me sometimes when emotions overwhelm me- I go straight into my head, but no actual display of emotion, not yet. This continued for me even as I watched my brother tearfully try to comfort my mom that night at the hospital, and as family arrived, I watched them tearfully and emotionally leave her room at the shock of her condition. We knew at this time that she had yellow jaundice and her illness had something to do with her liver.


The next day the tests resumed, and mom started looking slightly better and interacting with her visitors. This is something that there was never a lack of in her last days- visitors, friends, loved ones. The waiting room for the duration of her stay in hospital was filled, always, and many times we were all just there together, with each other. I remember feeling the warmth of those times and the sheer confusion around what was happening with mom, it was in people’s eyes.


Then came the news, we listened to the doctor say; “Your mother has Cancer”… that’s not a problem was my immediate thought- lots of people have Cancer. However, what she said next took the foundation beneath my feet, everything that supported me. She answered my question about treatment with; “There is no treatment for your mother’s condition, it is an extremely aggressive form of Cancer, one we don’t see often.” I sensed my siblings and father feel and display immediately what was happening inside of them and watched my sister launch into hers. I stood staring at the doctor, feeling the vastness of nothing to the side of me, nothing in-front of me, nothing behind me and nothing beneath me- it was all gone, I felt unstable.


I will always remember that feeling, not because I want to but because from that nothingness, as I would later reflect came everything I needed. And because through the loss of my mother, my friend, my teacher, and my biggest cheerleader, I learned the true meaning of Allah’s promise “For indeed, with hardship there will be ease. Indeed, with hardship will be ease (94:5-6).” Even though I was detached for some time during my mother’s last days, I was conscious and mindful of my process throughout.


My mother already knew what we had just learnt, she was on her own when she was told. Why, oh why would you choose to tell someone they are dying when they are on their own with no support?? My God these people have no emotional insight, these doctors! I thought. But she knew and had known for a while already. She was dying and I was not ready. A feeling of constriction to my chest prickled, you know that feeling, like you can’t breathe. I was not ready to be without my mother. Somehow, we, I get caught up in the illusion of control and feel that if life unfolded as we planned, if we controlled our readiness, it would somehow be better, easier.


She was dying and I know now that nothing could have prepared me for that. We all walked away we didn’t speak to each other and anyone else. My father stood in the parking lot with me, emotional, shock, she is going to leave me soon. I went home took care of my children and went back that evening to visit mom, we didn’t talk, she just smiled.


A few days later I rushed to the hospital from work, I had decided that I needed to have a very serious conversation with her about what I felt she needed to do- I tend to get bossy sometimes. On my way into her room her doctor caught me in the passage and sat with me and explained that she had given mom a blood transfusion, what medication she was administering etc. I felt my indignance rise up, goodness finish up lady, I thought. Then she added, “I know the other day when I spoke to you and your family about your mother’s diagnosis, we said she had a few months, but I want to tell you “I believe it’s less than that, I think she only has weeks remaining.” Yet more confirmation and another feeling of being winded. She was right.


I walked into mom’s room, and she smiled. I asked stoically; “How are you feeling about the news?” “I accept it, but I’m human.” she answered, and she became tearful. I did not shed a tear, I listened to her speak of my daughters and how she wouldn’t see them grow up, and that she was worried about my sister, and she was glad that she still had me. I asked when she was going to tell the rest of the family. She hesitated, and I reminded her of her struggle with expression and said I didn’t want to her to leave that way. I wanted her to have her moment, her moment to choose to put it all out there and not be afraid of doing so. She looked at me with tired eyes, acknowledging what I was saying and unsure of how to do what I was expecting. We spoke some more, and she said to help her to the bathroom, she wanted to make wudhu (perform ablution) and perform salaah (prayers).


I cried only twice in her last days, once as I saw her starting to leave us. Something happens in those last days; they are still with us but not with us. I went to my siblings and said, “She is still here, if you need to say anything to her, I suggest you do it soon.” I went first, I felt my chest break open, literally, and a flood of emotions poured out as I said; “Thank you Mommy, thank you for everything”, because there was so much, she had done for me, so much, and as I now know one year later would continue to do for me. And I asked her for forgiveness, as I sobbed. Her eyes welled up with tears as she clearly affirmed, “Wallahi (I swear by Allah) you have been good children to me.” That was my last interaction with my mother where she was able to respond to me.


She was with us for only three more days following that. To say she was in pain is an understatement, she was experiencing the pain of death, and it was excruciating to watch. I never really made duah (prayed) for her recovery, perhaps I will be judged for that. Instead, I made duah that she is given ease and a remarkable ending, one which she had worked for in this dunya (earthly plain). And one of my most fervent duahs was that I be counted as one of those present when she departed. You see I felt the best I could do for my mom was support her in her acceptance of her time in this life, and because I knew just as she did it was coming to a close.


The second time, I sobbed in my uncle’s arms hours before mom left us. After watching over her during the afternoon there were more signs that it was almost the end. He held me and whispered; “Allah will make it easy”, I believed him, he said it like he was sure, and it was an incredibly warm and comforting moment for me.


Mom’s breathing became rapid for a short while and then shallower in her last hour. Most of her siblings were there, some of my dad’s siblings and many of my cousins and other loved ones. Her room was filled. At 9-25pm my mother exhaled for the last time. There was no gasping and no sudden movements, I watched her shoulders slightly lift off the pillow and heard my uncle mutter; “Subhan Allah (glorious is God)” behind me. Her ruh (soul) was leaving her physical form, she had her hand by the side of her face and her head gently fell to the side, it was like she had fallen asleep.


The next moment is one that has been retold numerous times, my aunt pointed to my mother's face and said, “Look how beautiful she is!" As my mother’s ruh ascended her face physically became fuller and lit up with nur (light). We all stared in astonishment at her stunning transition.


I felt incredibly connected to the unseen world at the moment of mom’s departure, my heart was open, and I was smiling. I was fully present in the awareness of my pride for the work we had done together as mother and daughter. I felt acceptance and a letting go, to the degree that I experienced joy. I left the room that night completely changed.


Her janaazah (funeral) was beautifully peaceful and spoke volumes of who she was. My final act of service to my mother was closing her face before she was carried out of her house and taken home. I stood in the street until the men carrying her took the bend and I couldn’t see anymore, I hoped she was looking back, and that she saw me.


Today I have been missing my mother for one year. I miss most talking to her and sharing with her, her acknowledgement of an idea or a plan I have. There is nothing in this world my mother believed I could not do or achieve; she would not allow me to say I had failed and would continue to cheer me on. Her belief in me was unfailing and she would often give me a look that said, why are you doubting yourself? Go do it! I miss what she meant to my eldest daughter, we talk about her often, and at night in bed we greet her and say, “We love you Ma.”


I wish I could share with her the courage her passing has given me and how she helped me to remember who I am, and the decisions I have made since, how she has liberated me. My mother’s passing is symbolic to me because her leaving was a reminder of what this life is truly about for me, and from her loss, from the nothingness I felt when we were told about her diagnosis, I gained back my life. I found the ground again, feel more aligned with my deepest values, and now, every day my life reflects and is an expression of my own authenticity.


My mother has left so much behind, wherever we go people speak of her goodness and her character. To me though the most important thing she has left behind, in which I believe she continues to give to me and others, is her example. Her example of living her life centered at her soul, in remembrance of where it would depart to eventually. She lived in this world, but she was not attached to it, and this was evident in the preparation she made every day on her prayer mat, especially on a Friday. In her recitation of the Quran and in her countless, countless acts of service to others. She was a giver in every sense of the word, and she did it with no attachment to the outcome, but rather to the acknowledgement she would receive from the Almighty.


Sheikh Anwar Al-Awlaki (may Allah be pleased with him) says in the 25 promises of Allah to the believer; “On the day of judgement it will be dark, and you will be asked to cross over a bridge that is thinner than a hair and sharper than a razorblade and there’s no light. So, it is impossible. Unless you are given light by Allah. This light that Allah will give you, the power of the light will depend on how much light was in your heart in dunya. Iman will come on the day of judgement in the form of light. The Iman that is in your heart today will be your light tomorrow.”


I hear this and I think about my mother, she will have her moment, she will have it when she speeds across the sirat (bridge) because of her powerful light, and she will enter Jannah (paradise) Amin. May Allah grant my mother his shade on the day of judgement, elevate her status and may she enter Jannah without reckoning Amin.


I want you to know that there is ease in grief, and it has come for me in many forms. I want you to know that grieving is an individual process and that I do not consider it to only take time, rather that it is what you do in that time. So, grieve in your time of grieving, be present with it all, it is the only ask.


What I saw in my mother’s room that night of her transition was that at the end nothing else mattered but her own preparation for the hereafter, and that she loved, and was loved Algamdulilaah (praise be to God). I have let my mother go, I will see her again someday and I look forward to our conversations.

bottom of page