Forid Ali Out of London - After Hardship Comes Ease
“So after hardship comes ease, I pray whoever reads this and has their own specific dates, please take hope from the fact that, after your hardship comes ease…”
After hardship comes ease.
I have been on this earth 40 years and each year as an adult I have enjoyed and participated in Ramadan, the Islamic act of Fasting for 30 days.
To be honest, the 30 days come and go and there is generally significance and effort to attend family gatherings, pray and self-reflect.
April 2024 came round, I felt a lump and subsequently, and not spending too much time on this part of my testicular cancer journey;
I had the diagnosis, orchiectomy and chemotherapy ensued.
I just wanted to highlight that for me now Ramadan is forever a different event, it made me cry then, and makes me cry now. It is no longer a blanket 30 days.
The 2nd day of Ramadan I had my orchiectomy.
The 16th of Ramadan I was diagnosed with cancer.
The 27th of Ramadan I started chemotherapy.
Life will never be the same. Ramadan will never be the same. These dates will now forever be embedded, cauterized, with significance only for me and no one else. That makes me feel lonely in one respect but thankful in so many more ways than I can describe, I appreciate these dates, that are specifically mine related to my own journey.
I reflect and am now thankful for the support from family on those days. I am reminded of the nurses, doctors, charities, my mother, my wife, my daughter, my son, my sisters, my brother, my community, friends and countless people that offered me a shoulder that my ‘thank you’ can never truly encapsulate or reciprocate the merits of what they gave me.
So after hardship comes ease, I pray whoever reads this and has their own specific dates, please take hope from the fact that, after your hardship comes ease…