Life is beautiful.
My first child was born today.
During the Covid pandemic, I took a year out of Med School.
My brother is on immunosuppressants for a liver transplant he had as a child so was classed as clinically vulnerable to Covid.
As a result, I thought it would be sensible to study Global Health, a remote course from the same university, granting me the degree at the end of the year.
As I sat at my laptop, between Global Health Zoom lectures and collecting groceries delivered to our door, in mask and gloves, I typed.
I sat and typed a Bruno Fernandes blog post as my first piece of public writing. I only did so because I couldn’t verbalise my contrarian opinion in the character limit Twitter had at the time.
The feedback was surprisingly positive so I continued. 3 or 4 pieces in, Bernardo Silva had been sent one of my pieces about him and messaged me, thanking me for writing it.
Despite the little noise my work was making, I was still a university student writing for fun.
Twitter mutuals (people you might have in common with those you know) is a funny concept.
There’s a (probably unfounded) sense of inherent trust. In one instance, this trust was completely founded.
A good brother by the name of Abdul had reached out to me. He had an astuteness for recognising talent in the football space, unrecognised or underappreciated talent, particularly from minority backgrounds.
Like a friend I’d gone to secondary school with, he greeted me with the same warmth and slang. Salaam my bro — before he mentioned that he wanted to bring me in to work with him and Statman Dave.
I knew Statman Dave, and his place in the football world, and it was cool. One weekend, I traded the Global Health Zoom calls for a Zoom call with Dave and Abdul to discuss work.
For the next season, I had my first paid role in football, albeit in a completely different capacity to what I’d ended up doing.
It made something click, and it gave me momentum and proof that what I’d done worked. And it was thanks to Abdul.
As my presence in football grew, Abdul continued to look out for me — like he did for many.
He brought me onto JD’s Influencer partnership, and he invited me to London, for Chelsea’s away game at West Ham, again on JD’s expense.
Lyes is somebody I’ve grown alongside in the football space, our come-ups mirroring each others. This West Ham game, courtesy of Abdul’s invites, was where I first met him too.
This week, Abdul passed away. If I remember correctly, I think he was just 25.
It’s always sad when people die, but there’s a bitter sweetness in the eulogies of people collectively. I often wonder how people would talk about me when I die. What stories would they tell? What stuck out in their mind from our interactions?
I knew Abdul was a good guy, but the frequency and manner in which people have described his goodness this week cannot go amiss. A pure heart, and a brother gone too early.
In Islam, we’re encouraged to visit the grave frequently. It’s to remind us of the gift of every second, to be grateful for our each breath, the grass we see, the birds we hear, the food we can taste. The simplest of things we are so easily forgetful of are miraculous. Remembering death puts the gift of life into perspective.
Today, I witnessed the birth of my first child. My son. A little boy. Alhamdulilah, it’s the greatest blessing I’ve experienced.
When people speak about their children, I thought I understood it. Today I understood that I didn’t understand a thing.
I tried to imagine this whole experience over the last few weeks prior to the birth, but the real experience cannot come close to anything I imagined, irrespective of whatever logic I applied.
That little human is my little friend — the probability of his existence as miraculous as the most imaginary, fictional things.
Life is a really beautiful thing.
It’s a tragedy that we sulk through days, or feel bored.
Even on the worst of days, the miracle of something as simple as being able to feel one hand clasp the other is something my friend Abdul won’t get to do again, on this Earth.
For things on Earth to be beautiful and appreciated, they need to be finite.
It’s hard to come to terms with, I know but it’s is one of life’s most important reflections.
And although it helps us, it shouldn’t require the remembrance of death and the miraculous beauty of birth to bring that thought to the forefront of our mind.