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I See Myself in Her
On Overwhelmed Mothers, Changing Bodies, and the Bridge We Still Need to Build I do not write this because I am ungrateful. Alhamdulillah, Allah has blessed me far beyond what I deserve. A husband. Children. A home. Food on the table. Decades of memories. The immense privilege of motherhood itself. Naturally, I know these are blessings, and I am fully aware that many people long for exactly what I have. Yet, I also know that Allah says: لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ فِي كَبَدٍ “Indeed, We have created humankind in toil and hardship.” Surah Al-Balad 90:4 Ultimately, hardship is not the opposite of gratitude; it is simply part of being human. Consequently,…
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Nobody Claps for the Mother Who Remembered Everything
Nobody claps for the mother who remembered everything. Usually, they only notice the one thing she forgot. It’s the child suddenly announcing at 9 PM that they need green cardboard for school tomorrow. It’s the “Mama, did you sign this?” paper appearing exactly when everyone is already wearing shoes. But beneath those frantic moments is a vast, silent ocean of things that did happen because you remembered them: the favorite snack you bought, the way everyone’s different food preferences live permanently inside your brain, and the small emotional tensions you noticed before they ever became arguments. I don’t think most families do this maliciously. Invisible labor becomes invisible precisely because…
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The Quiet Vulnerability of Financial Dependence
Sometimes I stand holding an item in a store for far too long before quietly putting it back. Not necessarily because we cannot afford it. But because I am already mentally tired imagining how to explain why it matters. I think many women understand this feeling immediately. The small internal rehearsal. How to make the request sound reasonable enough. Necessary enough. Useful enough. Worth asking for. Especially when the thing is not pure survival. A notebook. A new prayer dress. Comfortable shoes. Skincare. An iced matcha. Containers you genuinely believe will finally organize your life this time. Tiny things. Tiny things that help tired women emotionally survive adulthood. And honestly,…
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Finding Stillness on the Rug
We are often told that prayer is a sanctuary—a brief, quiet retreat from the friction of the world. And in its essence, it is. But if I am being honest, in the middle of a restless afternoon, it can feel like one more weight on an already full day. Sometimes, the adhan doesn’t sound like an invitation; it sounds like a clock counting down the moments I don’t have. The Friction of Focus In a home with ten children, “silence” is a luxury I rarely find. I have stood in prayer while a toddler used my dress as a tent. I have recited verses while my mind was calculating how…
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Hayaa in a Loud World
Hayaa is often translated as modesty.Bashfulness.But for me, lately I realize thatit has never been just about what I wear. It is a feeling.A boundary.A quiet awareness.A secret cave. I’ll be honest,be truly honest.I don’t show much.I don’t always know how. There is a bashfulness that sits heavy on my tongue,making me shy to reveal my needs,shy to say what’s in my heart,shy to let the world see that I am tired. I used to wonder:Am I being too difficult?Is my silence a barrier to love?Am I expecting them to read my mind? I stayed quiet to avoid being a nag.I stayed quiet to keep the peace.But I am learning…
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The Road to Makkah, My First Umrah and the Hijab in the Mataf
In Indonesia, Umrah is a once-in-a-lifetime dream. People save for a long time. Lots of people wait until their hair is gray and their hearts are settled. They wait until they are “ready.” But there I was in 2005. Twenty-four years old. Newly married. Carrying my first child. We weren’t flying across oceans to find the House of Allah. We were driving toward it from Riyadh. The Quiet in the Desert It was April or May—that fleeting, golden window before the Saudi summer turns the world into a furnace. We left Riyadh late, after my husband finished work, chasing the horizon into an eight-hour drive. I remember the thrill of…
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Iqra, When My Mind Is Full
A quiet reminder for the days when everything feels like too much. When my mind is full, I don’t usually think about revelation. I think about what’s next. Who needs what. What I forgot. What I’m already late for. My thoughts move quickly—like tabs opening and closing faster than I can keep up. And in the middle of that noise, it’s hard to imagine a cave. A quiet place. A single word. Iqra. Read. In a world that constantly demands we do—to produce, to cook, to manage, to solve—it feels like a quiet mercy that the very first command given to our Prophet ﷺ was not a list of instructions.…
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The Forty Days Postpartum Rest We Forgot
We spend nine months preparing the nursery, but we spend zero minutes preparing our souls for the “void” that comes after the storm of birth. In Java, where my roots are, we don’t “prepare” for postpartum with a shopping list; we prepare with a shift in tempo. There is a quiet, deeply practiced understanding that a mother must be held for forty days. Traditionally, her body is considered “open” and her energy fragile. She is surrounded by her mother or her mother-in-law—whoever brings her the most peace. There are helpers, traditional masseuses, the warming heat of Jamu tonics, and specific foods designed to “seal” the body back together. But for…
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When “The Best” Feels Out of Reach
We have all heard the Hadith: Often, we hear it in the context of leadership—the way a father or a husband carries himself. And rightly so. But as a mother of ten, I’ve found myself sitting with these words… a little differently. What does it mean to be “the best” when you are bone-tired? What does it look like when the “smallness” of daily life—the endless questions, the missing snacks, the constant mental load—begins to weigh on you? The “Forty-Tab” Brain The mental load of a mother is invisible because it is made of micro-decisions. From the outside, it can look like we are “just sitting with a laptop.” But…
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Faith Is Also Built on Ordinary Tuesdays
