My umrah trip

Can't believe I'm actually writing this. There are two reasons for that: 1) I can't believe I had gone to Haramain, and 2) I can't believe that I had left the two holy cities just few days ago. Can you already guess; this post is going to be laden with my invisible tears and sad sighs. 

Two weeks ago, I went off to do my first ever umrah (and bi'idhnillah not the last one) with Sansan and my parents. If I could just be honest here... it wasn't in my plan to do it this year. Of course it was always deep down in my heart to finally go there but I never really made a conscious decision to actually make it happen this year because I always felt like I wasn't ready. I don't want to just go just because you have the moolahs and everything but I want to go when I feel like my spiritual side is ready to submit itself that way just so that the trip won't go to waste.

But oh, Allah knows best. He knows when is the right time for me and alhamdulillah, I welcomed such opportunity with my biggest hug ever. Looking back, I realized why some of our actually-planned trips didn't happen and I couldn't be more grateful. It's so true, Allah is indeed the All-Knowing and All-Hearing, because He listens and He knows what my heart truly desires. 

It still feels surreal, right to this very moment. I can't believe I had my last two Fridays praying in both Haramain, the city of Madinah and Makkah. Even now that I'm back here, I could still hear the muezzin's voice, calling us to prayer. Every time I stand up from ruku', I can still hear the imam's voice. The voices are still haunting me and it's not even in a bad way.

And boy did I cry a lot. Some people might have known, I'm such a crybaby lately and it got worse there. I cried when I reached Madinah, I cried even worse when I leave it (doing ziyarah wada' for Rasulullah SAW was the hardest and I didn't think I could recover from such sadness), I cried when I reached Makkah, cried even harder when I saw Kaabah, I cried when I leave it too. Safe to say I cried every day. I didn't even think I had such amount of tears in me. 

But oh my, Haramain were beautiful. Both the holy cities put my heart to ease like nothing else. I don't remember being worried over anything, other than hoping that our ibadahs were being accepted. Everything else is just miniscule in my lens like nothing can take my mind and my heart off my Lord and His Messenger SAW. 

Madinah was really special to me. Something unwanted happened, but alhamdulillah ya Rabb it didn't change my feeling about the Prophet's City even one bit. How I long to be there again... I cannot even put it into words. Makkah, of course, has no comparison. There's no competition there but both cities reside in its own special place in my heart and I didn't even know if that was possible. 

3 days prior to our flight back home, I made this ridiculous du'a to Allah to make the remaining of my days and nights in Makkah longer and slower so that I can take it all in. And yes nothing is ridiculous when it comes to asking from the Lord of All Things because that was exactly how I felt in the last 3 days of our stay. But of course the heart wants what it wants and even given such duration, I still feel like it wasn't enough. It will never be enough, isn't it?

The trip has also taught me a lot about the people around me. I have learnt to realize that I have such a great blessing in the form of my husband. And being there with my parents made it all complete. Sansan has been a sweetheart to me, considering how more sensitive and fragile he is as compared to me (lol), he had been super strong on my behalf -- comforting me when I needed it the most, even when he knew nothing could stop my tears from falling. Ya Rabb, please take care of him. He truly deserves everything good in this world. 

One of the preparations that we made before the trip was to prepare a list of du'as for us to make once we were there because you know, there are lots of mustajab places there, duh. But the moment I got to these sacred places, all I wanted to du'a for is the opportunity to come back. To be close to His house again, to be near to Rasulullah SAW again. Is this even normal? I don't care if it's not because I wouldn't want to feel any other way.

Reading the Messenger's seerah all these times before is one thing but being in a place where it all happened is just a whole different thing itself. Even visiting Uhud made me think of Sayyidina Hamzah r.a and it just broke my heart to pieces. I don't think I can even read more seerah after this without bawling my eyes out. I don't think I will get over it at all.

I know this is not much, you'd be expecting some tips and tricks from this post especially when it was my first umrah after all but this is all I can write for now. It still feels surreal to me. Everything is. I still feel like I'm stuck in a limbo-- one that I never want to get out of. 

Ya Allah, please ease the affairs of whoever is reading this and call upon them to visit Your house, and Your Messenger SAW. Let them be Your guests as soon as possible so that they will know how it feels to be as close to Home, ever. And please pray that my ibadahs get accepted too, yea? Ameen.