A Son’s Farewell: Nabil Lally Honors His Mother’s Legacy

 

I share a tribute to my Mom who just passed, to honor her legacy. 

A Mothers Day Tribute

I couldnt make it this time, I couldnt save her. But she was ready to go, she told me so.

Instead of surprising her with roses today, I bought a casket. But it's a pretty one. Purple. Her life is one to be remembered, not just on Mothers Day.

I have played Dr for 30 years, first diagnosing her heart attack in 1995. Then the blocked artery, the stent, the angioplasty, the fractured eye socket, the Covid, the Congestive heart failure, the multiple strokes, the rehab. I fought for her, like she fought for me, like she fought for her students. 

Hundreds, nay, thousands of people touched by her light, transformed by her steadfastness and love of God. If you have been impacted by her or wish to learn why she had such a calling, you all are welcome, the door is always open. 

She had a childhood learning diasability and was socially passed to high school. 
She became an educator ironically and taught English & Writing for nearly 35 years.
She became a Bahai in 1973, attracted to the message of Unity, and that Blacks and Whites worshipped together, broke bread together, built communities together. 
She retired and became an Education consultant. She wrote a writing manual called Bump It Up to help the students and teachers improve scoring on SC standartized testing in the economically impoverished county of a Williamsburg.
She wrote a booklet about Dr Charles E Murray, who served as a fierce educator during period of segregation and the school whose name sake she taught at for nearly 15 years. 
She wrote a book about Abdu'l- Baha, called Servant of the Poor, who in His words said: "To be a Baha'i simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood "

But best of all she was my Mother.

She was my home, my refuge, my safe place, my Atlas, my North Star. 

It was a fall that took her. A fracture. Multiple. A faulty Xray examination, a health care system that is broken. I could not figure out what was causing her cries of pain. Love was her only medicine. Untreated, it silently set off a chain reaction of cytokines that turned the hour glass that no one knows. 

To be honest, I don't want to come home. I am not ready to bury her. I want to hike to the tallest mountain, cross the farthest sea, not come back for 2 weeks, or 2 months. But I can hear her voice in the Adhan, the Call to Prayer, from the rooftops of Marrakech, echoing through the Palaces of Bahia. I can breathe her in the winds blowing from the coast of West Africa. I can feel her in the waves crashing against the lava stones, in the warmth of the Sahara sands. I can hear her singing from the top of Mount Teide, the song she sang to me as a child as I fell asleep, the Queen of Carmel. Cry out O Zion, follow your heart, my son. I am finally in the Abha Paradise. I am Home.

My heart ❤️ RIP