There was this strange pricking sensation around my eyes as I sat trying to put my little one to sleep. I suddenly realized why my eyes felt the pinching and why my head felt heavy: I had not slept properly for the past three days. Not that my kid was ill, and so that kept me awake, but it was simply that she hated to go to sleep and had been fighting real hard to avoid its descending into her eyes. She diligently fought off enthusiastic sleep which kept searching for a chance to pounce at her closed eyelids to take my little one into the land of dreams, but she definitely seemed to have other plans because
each time her eyes fell droopy, she would simply sit up, and tear open her eyes and smile at me. For the past three days, or nights rather, she had been making this pure revolt against sleep! She just wanted to keep awake so she could play with me, smile at me, fall over my face, and pry my eyes open if ever I pretended to sleep before her. It would take her hours to give in to that invitation of peaceful oblivion.
Tonight, as I sat there, it was fast becoming a hard-to-handle ritual with my daughter. Trying to make her (my one and a half year old) understand how important health-wise it was for me as well as for her to sleep on time caused me to realize that that there is a huge blessing and a reason for immense joy in being a mother. Despite all the prickly eyes, the heavy head and the pain in my neck, it is all truly worth it.
A single smile from her (the more unreasonable it is the more effective it is) just wipes out every pain and discomfort for that one moment. There isn’t much that a mother wouldn’t give to have the sight of her kids smiling back at her all the time. A moment that I remember of my mother is that of the patience with which she must have dealt with all of my innocent stubbornness during the countless nights that I must have kept her awake.
Something that every loving child, no matter what age, should do is remember that every mother craves a loving smile from her child, regardless of sleepless nights and prickly eyes. Go smile at your mother, for a hadith says:
Ibn Abbas (Radi Allahu anhu) narrated that the Prophet (Sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “The pious offspring who casts a single look of affection at his parents receives a reward from Allah equal to the reward of an accepted Hajj.” The people enquired: “O Prophet of Allah (Sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam), if someone casts a hundred such glances of love and affection at his parents, what then?” The Prophet (Sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Yes, indeed, even if one does so a hundred times a day, he will get a hundred fold reward. Allah is far greater than you imagine and is completely free from petty narrow mindedness.” [Sahih Muslim]
Submitted By: Ayesha Saleem
Country: India