Sister Alecia

As salaam alaikum,

Inna lillahi wa inna lilaihi raji'oon.

She was 68, and almost like an aunt to me. She made me stuffed animals, including my life-sized rabbits Molly and Michael and my display bear, Queen Chinyere, a bear on her throne. She made the family our cookie jar, Coco, with a cookie in his hand. She made me laugh with her convoluted stories in her Caribbean accent that she held on to for dear life after leaving the Islands over 30 years ago. She was the sister from the Virgin Islands that everyone at the temple was asked to feel welcome when she first arrived, my mother tells me. She was like an older sister to the family. She traveled with the family, before my time, from Nation of Islam to Orthodox Islam. My mother knew her longer than she knew my Dad. She's been like family for as long as I can remember, and now she's passed. Today at 10am. And now she's with God, the God we've all come to know more and more as we journey to Islam.

I'll miss having her in this realm, but for me, the next life is greater than this, and though it toils along so long now, one day we'll be there, with her and everyone else there...

Uterine cancer no more. Peace is now.

I love you, sister Alecia. See you, insha'Allah. I am praying for you and your family.



...on a side note, her physician is Muslim, and is paying for all of the funeral arrangements, assuring that sister Alecia gets proper Muslim funeral proceedings. Masha'Allah! That's what it means to be Muslim. May Allah (swt) bless the physician and her family!