It was 2019, and I was preparing to travel to Nairobi to start a business. I was in a stage of my life where I was experimenting with business and travel. My family, especially my mother, was confused by my life decisions at the time.
I come from a big family. There are nine of us, six daughters and three sons. My mom already had enough on her plate with other children, grandchildren, and her business. Compared to all of that, she did not have much time to worry about me and my ever changing life.
Before leaving, I said my goodbyes to my siblings. I did not know I was saying my last goodbye to one of them.
If I could go back, I would have hugged her. Hugged her tight.
I think that is one of my biggest regrets. I am not a hugger, not even with my family, but that was the one time I wish I had held her tightly. What hurts more is that I did not learn from that lesson. I repeated the same mistake two more times with other sibling deaths.
At the time, everything felt normal. Temporary. Like life would just continue the way it always had. I did not think about death. I did not think about permanence. I thought I would see my siblings again, like I always did.
There was no sense of urgency. No sense of finality.
Just another goodbye.
I arrived in Nairobi full of plans and ambition. I had been there for about a month and was in the middle of setting up my business. To keep my mom comfortable with me being there, I stayed at my uncle’s house in Eastleigh.
Life felt busy. Distracting. Always moving forward.
Until it suddenly stopped.
The call came one morning.
I remember exactly where I was, inside my uncle’s house. I remember the tone of the voices. I remember how nothing made sense.
My sister had died.
My uncle tried to comfort me, but I was in complete shock. I could not even cry. I could hear my mom and my sisters on the phone explaining what happened, but it felt unreal, like I was watching someone else’s life from the outside.
It felt like an out of body experience.
How could this be real?
How could one of my siblings die suddenly in a car crash while I was not even there?
Hot tears rolled down my face, but I was not crying. I was not screaming or yelling. I was frozen, stuck between shock and denial, repeating in my head that this was not happening.
While I was sitting there in shock, I received a call from my dad, who also lived in Nairobi. The moment I heard his voice, I knew I needed to be with him.
I got dressed quickly and took a taxi to his house.
When I arrived, the house was full of family. My dad was sitting in the living room. I could see the pain on his face and hear it in his voice. She was his youngest child with my mom, and he loved her deeply. He never hid that love, and she deserved it.
She was the one who visited him the most, talked to him the most, and supported him the most.
I sat next to my dad, quiet and numb. Nothing still felt real. Part of me was waiting for someone to say this was a mistake, that there had been some terrible confusion.
That day was the first time I ever saw my dad cry.
I did not grow up with him, and in the time I spent around him, he rarely showed emotion. A former soldier. A Somali man. Emotion was not something he expressed openly.
Seeing him cry broke something in me, but I still could not reach that emotion myself. I was still stuck in shock. So I sat next to him silently, unable to comfort him and unable to comfort myself.
Because I was not in Minnesota, the only way I could understand what was happening was through phone calls, messages, and FaceTime.
I learned that she was driving to pick up her daughter from school when she got into a car accident. She died instantly.
Not being there made everything worse.
If I had been there, if I had seen her body, it would have made it real. I could have cried. I could have begun grieving. Instead, I was thousands of miles away, trapped in shock.
I thought about flying back for the funeral, but I had just leased my store a day earlier and my business had just started. I did not go.
Looking back, I should have booked a flight immediately.
This is another regret I carry with me.
Not hugging her goodbye.
Not attending her janazah.
To this day, it still haunts me. I do not know if my excuses were valid or if I was being selfish. All I know is that I was not there when I should have been.
While my family attended her funeral, I boarded a bus from Nairobi to Garissa to be with my nephew.
The roads were muddy. The trip was long.
She had two children. A daughter, the one she was picking up from school, and a son who lived with his grandmother in Garissa.
When the bus arrived, I did not want to get off.
What do you say to a nine year old boy who just lost his mother while you have not even processed your own pain yet?
I did not know how to comfort him. I did not know what words existed for a moment like that. It was the most heartbreaking thing I had ever done.
And sadly, it would not be the last time.
I stayed in Garissa for two weeks, then returned to Nairobi and my business. I kept going without ever fully accepting what had happened. I kept myself busy with work as a way to cope and to run from my grief and emotions.
I did not know it then, but I never truly processed my sister’s death. This is one of the things I am currently working toward in my wintering era.
Even now, after visiting her grave in Minnesota many times, it still feels unreal. Maybe because it was the first sibling death. Maybe because it was sudden. Maybe because I was far away. Maybe because I did not attend the funeral.
Probably all of it.
All I can do now is make du’a for her and be there for her children. And in shaa Allah, may we be reunited in Jannah, where I can finally ask her for forgiveness.