She Taught Me, RaHimaha Allah [Poem by Sidi Naajee 03/01/21]

 علمتني، رحمها الله

قصيدة لسيدي ناجي

مَدَنِيٌّ أنا و هي ابنةُ الريفْ

شتْويٌّ أنا و هي بنْتُ خريفْ

علمتني، رحمها الله

جاهِلٌ بأُمُور الزوجية كنتُ

بعطفٍ و حُبٍّ رفَعَتْنِي فقُمْتُ

علمتني، رحمها الله

جزائري الطبع و جُلِّي عنفوانْ

فأرَتْنِي جمال الحِلْم و الحَنانْ

علمتني، رحمها الله

لُغَتي و كِتَاباتي كانت عربيةَ المغاوراتْ

فبيَّنَتْلي أهمِّية الإختصار في العباراتْ

علمتني، رحمها الله

ظَنَنْتُ أني صابرٌ ذو عزْمٍ جِدُّ مُثابرْ

بصبرها تعلمْتُ عزْمَ الرجال الأكابرْ  

علمتني، رحمها الله

أُبُوَّتِي حزْمٌ و جزْمٌ و صرامة

بأمومتها فقِهْتُ جوْهر الكرامة

علمتني، رحمها الله

جاهلٌ كنت أنا بآيات الله في هاذِ الطبيعة

فمَدَّت لي حبل وصْلٍ بالأرض بعد القطيعة   

علمتني، رحمها الله

يا ربي تعلمت كثيرًا من ريكي، زوجتي

فاغفر لها و ارحمها كما كانت مربيتي

علمتني، رحمها الله

The Eyes Weep for Her [Eulogy Poem of Sidi Naajee 10/28/20]

 العين تبكيها

قصيدة رثاء لسيدي ناجي

العين تبكيها

و القلب يرثيها

و لسان الحال دومًا يُدنيها

حبيبة قلبي، لا شيء يُنسيها

ترِيبة نفسي ودعتِ الدنيا و ما فيها

أم أولادي، ما زالت جوارحي تنعيها

يا ربي الصبر أسألك، و السلوان فيها

أحببتها حبًّا صادقًا لاريب فيه، و لا شك فيها

سامحني يا رحمان إن كنتُ قد قصرت فيها

ارحم زوجي يا رحيمُ، و صبرني و أهليها

و اغفر لها و لي و لجل بناتها و لكل بنيها

و أدخلها فسيح جناتك يا ربي، و دعها تتنزَّه فيها!

رحمك الله يا حليلتي يا رفيقتي يا حبيبتي!

Saddened to Your Departure (Eulogy Poem of Sidi Naajee 10/17/20)

حزنت لفراقك

قصيدة رثاء لأم البنين و البنات

حزنت لفراقك يا أم البنينِ

و كيف لا يحزن المرأ لفراق أمٍ حنونِ

وردة الزمان أنتِ و شهده

و طول المكان أنت و عرضه

حزنت لفراقك يا أم البنات

و كيف لا يحزن القلب لفراق عروس السيدات

نبضة قلبٍ أنت و حياته

و فكرة عقلٍ أنت و زكاته

حبك يا أم البنين دائمٌ سائدُ

لا يعرف نهاية و هْوَ دومًا عائدُ

حزنت لفراقك يا أم البنين

و أسأل الرحمان سلوانًا لحزني الدفين

حزنت لفراقك يا أم البنات

و من لم يحزن عليك، فهْوَ أجمد الجمادات

حبيبتي أنتِ على مدى الدهر

و حبيبتي أنت يا أميرة الزهر

حبيبتي أنت و لو تحت الثرى

و حبيبتي أنت إلى ما بعد الكرى

حبيبتي أنت حتى بعد أن أحب

و حبيبتي أنت حبًّا أزليًا يدب

رحمك الله يا أم البنين و البنات و أدخلك فسيح جنانه  

Eternal Torch [Two Eulogy Poems]

Eternal Torch (V1)

Poem II by Sidi Najee dedicated to Ricki (RhA) on the fourth month of her voyage to the afterworld!

In the days of madness

In the nights of sadness

Only your light shows the way

Light the path, oh Eternal Torch!

In the weeks of noise

In the months of mispoise 

Only your radiance makes us calm

Light the path, oh Eternal Torch!

In the seasons of embers

In the years of scorched timbers

Only your calmness bathes us in coolness

Light the path, oh Eternal Torch!

In the centuries past and

In the centuries to come

Only your spirit can shine a light, so

Light the path, oh Eternal Torch!

In the torch a jewel shines

In the torch a name is inscribed 

Only you and your name therein

Let it be known that only Ricki

Is my incessant Eternal Torch

That shines with love

That brims with hope

That glows with so ever happy thoughts!

RhA ya Ummal Baneeni wal Banat!

Eternal Torch (V2)

Poem I by Sidi Najee dedicated to Ricki (RhA) on the fourth month of her voyage to the afterworld!

Love is light

And, light never ceases to exist.

Love is sight

That never goes blind and shall always resist.

Love is a beat

And, it never fades away in the cacophony of life.

Love is a breath

That keeps us alive despite all the suffering and strife.

Your love, Sweety, is the Eternal Torch

That shall forever guide my heart and revive it henceforth!

Note: These two poems were finished back in 10/13/20. 

Derivatives of Life & Integrals of Death (Act 2)

    My late father (RhA) teased me for bucking trends that most young man my age would take. He told me, "People start a family with two but you started one with four!" 

    What would a new immigrant do when the duties of fatherhood literally materialize overnight to care for a family and in a brand new country where the INS is not the friendliest of governmental agencies one would ever want to deal with? 

    A string of jobs had to begin, a fight for citizenship had to commence, and of course the drudgery of life renders all of us oblivious to the fact that death is grinding its way a picosecond at a time in an inevitable indefinite integral. For the uninitiated, the seconds we live add up to seconds we approach death. This summation that has no definite known boundaries is what math geeks would drily call an indefinite integral. 

    Heh, what a newlywed couple like us is to worry about? Ricki (RhA) and I were like teenagers then; we were approaching things as immortals. Sure we were from the get-go poor; a jobless immigrant Physix student and a special education student who just happens to be a supermom of two beautiful children. We were typical idealistic hippies who were determined to enjoy life and raise a family one way or another! Luckily for us, the grand parents generously allowed us to live in the home Ricki was living in at the time without rent to pay. So, odd part time jobs that deal with cash only were possible for me to undertake beside my PhD studies at MSU. The stipend I got as a TA coupled with the paperboy delivery and the carwash jobs, we were barely managing as a family. Love and unflinching belief in the goodness of fate were the antidotes that kept us moving forward. Love of one another, love of children, and love of life, as bitter and as harsh as it was for us then, did not stop the sensual lovemaking nor the childbearing! We were a children-making machine and a positivity-churning engine! 

    Yacin was born, a definite new inflection point and onto Act 3...

Note: This act was completed on 07/06/20.

I thought I had it all under control!

I thought I had it all under control! 

Written on 11/16/20 by Sidi Naajee 

I thought I had it all under control! 

Until a house anniversary knocked 

On my mind's door, a deluge of "what ifs", 

Of missed opportunities, of more pleasures, 

I could have showered my baby with, slammed 

Me so hard against the walls of the dam of new 

Realities, new normals, new times of sorrow!

I thought I had it all under control! 

Until our 34th wedding anniversary 

 Followed days later and the flow 

Of sadness came at the heels of the 

Ebb of regret for not doing enough 

To free my Sweety from the shackles 

Of cancer, the fangs of pain, the 

Bitterness of malady and side effects! 

I thought I had it all under control! 

Until her birthday rang its hollow bell. 

No candles to be lit today! 

My baby, The mother of my babies, her very 

Candle lost its wick, all melted in 

The world of eternal silence! 

I thought I had it all under control! 

But I fully resign myself to accepting 

That the hole in the heart is here to 

Stay, the jolts to the rational brain 

Are forever going to trigger tremors 

In the sediments of many years of 

Lasting sweet memories, full of 

Imaginable and unimaginable events, 

Experiences, and exchanges of our 

Forever intermingled, intertwined souls! 

I thought I had it all under control! *

Until Mother's Day sprang upon us. 

No wishes to be gifted and no gifts to be shared, 

No messages to be sent and hollowed hearts abound, 

The mother of all mothers left the mothership 

To an uncaptained crew lost in the shears of sorrow, 

The tears of grief, longing, loss, and unspeakable void! 

I thought I had it all under control! 

Until the first Ramadhan without my fasting twin came 

And the first Eid, without the most Eidful of ladies, dawned 

The mind had to wrestle with the inevitable, 

The soul had to swallow the pill of bitter 

Reality; my lady (RhA), my woman 

Is waiting for me, for us, for all 

Humanity in heaven, in Eden 

In a realm where love 

Never withers 

And peace 

Never 

Dies! 

 RaHimaki Allah (RIP) ya ummal banini wal banaat!

* These and what follows it were continued and added on 05/14/21

Derivatives of Life & Integrals of Death (Act 1)

Sixty-one days passed since the departure of my beloved wife (RhA) from this ephemeral world to the eternal one. May she rest in peace (RIP)!
To honor her memory and to attempt to wrestle with the void her departure had forever etched in my heart, I shall post milestones from our life together in a series of vignettes (also referred to as acts) titled, "Derivatives of Life & Integrals of Death". Below is Act 1!


       Differentiation and integration are at the heart of calculus, the math field that was the brainchild of two physicists of repute. Differentiation involves the use of derivatives, which are, at the heart of it, mere rates of change or slopes of curves and straight lines. Integration involves integrals, which are essentially summations of areas under curves and lines.
       So you might ask, "What does any of this relate to life and death?" Well on the face of it not really. But, this is what popped in my bewildered head in one of the dreams I had recently. I interpreted it as a means my brain was trying to rationalize and eulogize the recent death of my beloved wife, Ricki Rae Babcock Nadji (Rahimaha Allah [RhA], may Allah engulf her in His Mercy, which is in a sense the Muslim version of RIP). There must be a significance to the title and there has to be some hidden meaning to it; otherwise why would it just pop up into my head, and in a dream? Ricki (RhA) and I lived a life together that accepted fate as a norm. Espousing such a mantra in one's life means that things happen for a reason and as such one must trust that they would deliver them goods in the end. Thus, I decided to accept the title of this tribute and run with it and see where it would lend me in the realm of homage and grief writing.
       When dealing with derivatives, especially those of curves, one encounters the idea of inflection points. Those are points where the rates of rates of change undergo a change from positive to negative or vice versa. The first inflection point in our case was set in the fateful evening that Ricki and I first met. I was at a dance club on a Sunday evening, oldies night, when two women approached me. The song was "Surf City" by Jan and Dean and it meant that I would dance with the two of them. I love dancing; I happily accepted the offer but one of the two beauties definitely showed interest in me more than the other. The song ended and the following song was a slow one. Ricki signaled to me to remain on the dance floor to continue our dance; the interest was confirmed, the spark of passion was kindled, and the torch of love was forever lit!
       The encounter grew into encounters, the dance offer flowered into multiple dances, and the sparkle of love turned into a raging brilliance of sweetest of emotions. New Year's Eve party celebration, which Ricki arranged and planned throughout, marked a new inflection point in the burgeoning relationship. It became clear then that our love relationship was on a positive first derivative trend for good. The following summer I had to leave for Algeria to straighten my governmental paperwork. The three-month separation was atrocious and the relationship underwent a negative slope were it not for the letters; yes, old fashioned snail-mail letters! Ricki and I penned a flood of love letters back and forth. Ricki's were monsoonish while mine were pendular. I was miserable and so was she; the Atlantic separation felt like a galactic one, no a universe-wide separation was more like it. A pivotal moment of both of our lives, the mother of all inflection points, came in a marriage proposal that witnessed its birth within two lines in betwixt two of those summer romantic letters. Destiny took its course, life etched its fate, and our lives became forever intertwined!
       The wedding was swiftly set and Islamically blessed in the Masjid of Lansing as soon as I returned to the US. The celebration was not extravagant, the cake was delicious but humble, and the atmosphere was charged with love, tenderness, and the sweet company of closest of family members and friends. But as soon as the reveling subsided, the realities of life hit us with a new inflection point.

Act 2 shall follow...