I was reading Rumi's Daughter when something clicked inside me, clearer than I expected, almost painfully so. Shams, with all his brilliance and turbulence, reminded me too much of him. Shams was a great man, but not a good husband—too consumed by his inner world, too submerged in himself to make room for another heart. And suddenly it made sense why loving him had felt the way it did. Kimya struggled with Shams' changing moods; I had struggled with his. He was amazing, yes—deep, intuitive, spiritually awake—but people like that rarely make stable partners. They are too absorbed in their own becoming.
There was a line in the book that felt like an arrow straight to the truth of my heart:
"She had come to realise that instead of being anchored in God, she had become dependent on Shams' ever-changing moods, and so lost her center."
That was exactly what I had done. I had liked that he liked God. I had told myself I wouldn't get attached like I had with my old best friend, but I still ended up doing just that. I slipped again, fell again—into that same old pattern of looking for God through a human being. And when you do that, when you make someone else the window, you're bound to fall out of it. Attachment destroys you quietly, slowly, then all at once.
It had started beautifully—calm, comforting, almost romantic from my side. But in the end, it hollowed me. This is what happens when you lean on someone for a steadiness they never promised to give. When they leave, your iman shakes with them. It isn't their fault. Humans were never meant to carry that weight.
And then, somewhere along the way, I fell for him. Hard. Maybe not for him exactly, but for the idea of him—for the softness he carried in the library, the stillness in his voice, the way I felt when he talked about God. I even imagined him meeting my grandfather, imagined us living together, imagined him as a father. I was so lost in the possibility that I forgot none of it had ever been offered to me.
I even rejected someone who liked me—actually liked me—because I had convinced myself that he would ask me out any day. Because I had already built a whole life with him in my head. But there were things that bothered me too. He never really let me talk. Conversations felt like lectures. And sometimes he said things so absurd that it genuinely startled me.
Still, I woke up missing him one morning—out of nowhere. We hadn't talked in days. Nothing had happened that should have reminded me of him. But the moment my eyes opened, he was there in my mind, the way he used to be when we talked every day. Back then, whenever I missed him deeply, he would text me out of nowhere. It happened so often that I began to rely on it, like some strange signal connecting us. But this time, there was nothing. No message. No sign.
I hated how far apart we'd drifted. I knew we would separate eventually, but I didn't expect the distance to come this quietly, creeping into whatever little time we had left.
That night I found myself checking my mother's phone, wondering if he had only blocked me. He had removed his profile picture—something he always did when he needed space. Then, days later, it would reappear and he'd be active again. I don't know why, but some part of me hoped that was the reason for his silence. With the war looming and the anxiety pressing deep into my chest, I just hoped he was alright.
That night I dreamt of him. Even in the dream, he was unreachable. We were at some charity event—or maybe a dua event—and I was searching for him everywhere, expecting him to be there because he always was. But he wasn't. I saw someone who looked like him from behind—same height, same posture—but when they turned, it wasn't him. And the disappointment I felt, even in a dream, was so real it followed me into the morning.
The rest of the dream is lost to everything else happening—the stress, the fear, the chaos of the world outside.
But the ache stayed.
The ache always stayed.