The First of Seven Special Days

Our precious and much loved foster-son Na’il suddenly passed away on February 4, 2009.
Even though as Christians we have different customs, we decided to follow the Jewish custom of keeping the seven (sheva) days of mourning (shiva) for our Muslim child.

Day 1 ~ Wednesday, February 4

After Na’il had died in hospital at 9.30 a.m., we returned home around noon, exhausted and dazed. The evening before, when I had taken Na’il to the hospital, Wim sent out emails to our worldwide friends, asking them to pray for our little boy. Now he had to tell them the sad news of his death, and soon the first shocked reactions came in.

Na’il’s school and our social worker had been notified already while we were still in the hospital, and as I tried to get some sleep after a sleepless night, Wim called his family and our neighbors. Our neighbor doctor left his medical practice and drove straight home to be with us. The Social worker was with us when we told Nadia the news that her ‘brother’ had died and now was in heaven. She burst into tears, but a few minutes later sniffed, “Can I have his room?”

Fahima wasn’t feeling well, and would travel back to Jerusalem the next day.
3.30 p.m. the time Na’il usually came home from school, his driver and helper stopped by to cry with us. Never again would we hear the honking of the bus, announcing Na’il’s arrival from school.

In a Jewish family, the shiva commences immediately after the burial, which has to take place within 24 hours. For us, there was no opportunity to attend Na’il’s funeral.
Around 4 p.m. Na’il’s father called to tell us that his son now was buried in a family grave opposite the Mount of Olives. (See separate story of “Burial of an Angel”.)

I didn’t have the energy to cook, and Wim’s colleagues blessed us by bringing a casserole and a pot with fragrant hyacinths with a beautiful card attached.

Together with Will, Yudit and their two sons, our closest Dutch friends (who have become like family) we cried and mourned the loss of our precious little boy. More e-mails began to pour in, and the phone didn’t stop ringing. Because my Hebrew is better than Wim’s, each time I had to tell the whole story over and over again.
While I put Na’il’s bedding and clothes in the washing machine and ordered his room, it was so difficult to imagine that he was not coming back. Ever.

That night we rolled into bed, exhausted. However, I woke up at 3 am, and as the truth slowly filtered through my sleepy brain, it hit me again. I lay there, crushed, overwhelmed by grief and the feeling of loss, wetting the pillow with my tears. Waiting for morning to come.