When the Wound Is Still Healing

Sharing a moment from my healing journey.
May it reach whoever needs it, and pass gently by whoever doesn’t.

Ya Rabb, place healing where there is pain.

Yesterday, I went to lunch with my firstborn.
A quiet moment. A needed one.

As we were leaving the restaurant, we unexpectedly ran into my ex-husband. He was being seated—with his wife and her child.

And in an instant, the past stood in front of me.

She is someone connected to a season of deep pain and betrayal in my life.
Someone I have prayed over, asking Allaah to remove the anger from my heart so that I would not lose myself if I ever crossed paths with her again.

Her daughter is four years old—innocent, and blameless.
And still, the ache rose in my chest. Because my own daughter, my Princess—named after her father—barely sees him now. There are no slow afternoons, no shared laughter, no consistent presence she can rely on.

I know this is not a child’s fault.
But grief does not ask permission before it speaks.

And there he was—the man I shared twelve years of my life with.
The man I built a family with.
The man I loved deeply.

Together we raised children.
Together we made sacrifices.
And then, we did not make it.

Now he sits comfortably in a restaurant ten minutes from my home, in a neighborhood he does not live in, with a life that no longer includes the children he left behind.

I was expected to smile.
To offer salaams.
To continue on with my day—grocery shopping, school pickups, homework, dinner, building a future.

But something in me cracked.

The bandage came off.
And the wound—my heart—was still tender, still healing.

This is not bitterness.
This is grief layered with loss.
This is what happens when love ends without repair, and a mother is expected to carry on without pause.

I am healing.
But healing does not mean erasing the past.
And strength does not mean pretending pain never existed.

If you are carrying something similar—quietly, and bravely—know this: you are not weak. You are not behind.

You are human.
And sometimes being human hurts.