Let's just get this over with!

Hello beloved followers and all other listeners,
I am going to try and keep this short but it must be said and I think that there is probably no better time than now. Some of you know that I lost my wife, Nasim, on March 7 of this year. It has already been said in my earlier blogs. I am going to say it just one more time. And this time I am going to reveal how she was snatched away slowly but surely by the Supreme Being. I will also try and keep this very objective, no sentiments or heart-tugging stuff.
The year 2003 was an eventful one for my family. Nasim and I had both worked approximately 15 years in our respective jobs. She worked at Vancouver General Hospital and I worked for a multi-national airline catering company. At the turn of the century both of us felt lucky to have jobs we thought we would retire in! Then the chips began to fall. By the beginning of 2003 both of us knew that our days at our jobs were numbered. She was 50 and I was 55 by then. Not the best age to be knocking doors for work. We had struggled to put food on the table. Our jobs were the biggest jihad by far. Neither of us liked our work but the money that we brought in provided, not only food on the table, but also the luxury of putting our two children through a host of extra-cullicular activities including piano lessons for Taslim and hockey equipment and fees for Hasan.
Taslim married Nadir, her long time friend, in 2003. On the 27th of July. Weddings are supposed to be happy events and this one was for my family a very very special time. Nadir and Taslim handled all the details for the occasion themselves even personally decorating the banquet hall with their friends! There were however the little things, mostly traditional, that needed to be taken care of and Nasim handled it all with pride and perfection. It was not easy for her, to be sure, as there were two more weddings in her side of the family within the space of the next 5 weeks.
By the end of August both of us were advised that we would be laid-off from our workplaces before the end of the year. Nasim was devastated by the loss of her job. She began to withdraw. And she was very scared. We were barely making ends meet. And now this. In the years that followed her worrying brought about some pretty serious health challenges. One by one we faced each challenge and tried to look ahead with the confidence that times can only get better and she would enjoy good health after the next visit to the doctor. Then one day in early 2006 we were advised that Nasim had scleroderma. The doctors had not been able to diagnose the dis-ease sooner. The dis-ease was in her lungs.
For those of you not familiar with scleroderma suffice it to say that it is almost always terminal. There is no way of knowing how the dis-ease will progress but as it does it takes away ones strength and mobility. It will not allow the affected organs of the body to function normally. Coupled with this struggle Nasim had to face a host of questions from both friends and family like "what is the doctor saying now?" or "how come you are losing so much weight?". Uncomfortable and sometimes unreasonable questions but Nasim handled most situations with utmost courage.
By 2007, Nasim would need to go to the hospital almost every other month. The doctors would re-hydrate her and get her energy back up again, so to speak, and then send her off to home again. Her food intake dwindled progressively and so did her strength. Through all this she remained very strong in spirit. Her last weekend at home was spent with family and close friends. I drove her to Richmond General Hospital for the last time on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009. She was a familiar figure in the emergency ward by then and joked and laughed with the nurses there. It was like she knew that this was it. She stayed at the hospital the next few nights and passed away with all her family beside her on Saturday, March 7th, in the afternoon at around 4:30 p.m.
At first it felt like a relief to me but within a few weeks I realised the total loss I had suffered. So did the rest of my family but through all the lows we were lucky to have a strong support circle of close family members and friends around us.
So there you have it.
Life has to go on. Lets talk about my time in Ontario next time.
Hope that the weather will hold for one more day as I need to pull several hundred weeds from the garden.
Have a wonderful week.
Thank you Taslim and Nadir and Inaya for bringing over a very tasty fish dinner on the day I arrived from Toronto. Thank you, Hasan, for visiting on Friday. I love you all lots. I am sure Jez was here in spirit too!
Ciao
Abdul