I woke up to an sms from a friend who announced that he turned 60 today and if I could say a prayer for his continuous ‘rezeki’, good health and well-being so he would be able to continue to serve Allah.
Yes, of course of dear friend and comrade. I wish you all the blessings of the Almighty and many, many happy, healthy years ahead.
He and I started a long way back, from our final years at University. His hostel room was directly above mine and many a night I would be distracted by what sounded like marbles rattling on the floor. I finally went upstairs and knocked on his door to confront him about the noise but discovered that it did not come from his room after all. I never found out where the noise came from but he and from then on gradually became friends.
After graduating, we went on to join the same service and underwent a one year training together, and that was when we became closer. I loved visiting his village and roaming his family's acres of coconut plantation and cocoa farm and watching his mother make fermented soya bean cakes.
When he got married I was his best man. And earlier on I was advising him all things for the preparation of his wedding.
It was many years after his marriage that he was finally blessed with a child, a girl. Two more were to follow in the coming years. Before that he used to often confide to me his desperation of not getting a child.
Steeped in religion, he is really the one person who took me 100 percent as I am, never criticizing or questioning my 'worldly' ways! I could always seek sound advice from him as much as he would seek mine on more 'worldly’ things.
His career took a slight downtown at its peak due to his executing something based on his strong moral and religious conviction rather than what was commonly expected from him and the situation. He never quite got over it but retired in dignity and just before that was finally given what was due to him in the service.
Today he is a picture of contentment, living a very comfortable and useful life, often invited to give religious discourses, pottering around in his huge garden and looking after his very old mother, with a wonderful and very supportive, still-working wife and three very successful daughters, two doctors and an engineer. And he will soon be a father-in-law. What else can a man at 60 ask for!
My dear friend and brother, may Allah bless you always. Amin.
" I have learned that a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts,
for it is a love that has no exchange or payment."
Frances Farmer
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