an estraordinary woman

aysha laher was born on 21st december 1919 in a small villiage of india where the people were extremely conservative and tradional, girls stayed at home trainin to become housewives, she didnt go to school and learnt all she knew from life and from the people around her.

she got married at the age of 14, as was the norm then and she had her first child at the age of 19. but only a few years later, her husband died suddenly and mysteriously leaving her a young widow with a small child- a very unfortunate situation to be in that society especially if you wanted to remarry.

but a few years later she met and married a poor boy from a nearby villiage, and they had 10 children, 5 girls and 5 boys. Her mother didn’t approve of her new husband due to his being poor (it was a very materialistic society and marriage was all about money in that time) so she didn’t help aysha much and they struggled to feed their family, but they worked very hard, and the older children helped a great deal in bringin up their younger siblings, she would hav struggled to marry off her daughters but luckily they were beautiful and they married at a young age.

Fortunately, post war England recruited labour force from India and although aysha’s husband didn’t go due to complications, other Indian men did and they settled there, this gave rise to the opportunity for many Indians including aysha to marry off their children to these immigrants so that their children could go 2 england for a better life. And so a few of ayshas children settled in England.

In 1970, aysha’s husband died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 48, aysha was grief stricken and suffered a mild heart attack. she struggled immensely with her young children who were 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14. the older siblings helped but they themselves were poor and had children of their own.

2 years later her older sons who had settled in England were now able to call aysha and her family to England and so aysha and her 5 children emigrated to England. they stayed with aysha’s 2 sons and their familes… 14 of them in a 3 bedroom house. They moved several times in the next few years and she always lived at her sons house, having so many children ment she never had to live alone.

their life in India had taught them all the meaning of hard work and this earnt them a more comfortable life in the next few decades. Having children early and those traditions gave her the privlidge of being able to see 4 generations as she became a great great grandma and was able to go for hajj.

She suffered some health problems over the years including mild heart attacks and in 2000 aysha suffered renal failure and had to go on renal dialysis, meaning she had to go to the hospital to have her blood dialised for 4 hours, 3 times a week, all year, every year.

In 2001, her oldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer. It was benign so after a very large operation which almost crippled her and after several treatments she recovered but needed to walk with 2 walking sticks.

About a year and half later, her other daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumour (malignant) and after a 10 month battle (operations, cheomo, radiotherapy etc), ther was nothing more they could do but make her comfortable. Watchin her daughter deteriorate and pass away broke ayshas heart.

But aysha carried on. She continued going for dialysis and she looked forward to Sundays when her daughter would bring her to her house after dialysis in the evening and then drop her off home when she wanted to go back home. In January 2006, aysha suffered total renal failure and the dialysis was not working. She was admitted into saint james hospital in leeds where she stayed for the next 10 weeks, imprisoned, blood samples being taken several times a day, new lines for dialysis, a biopsy and an attempted endoscopy…she longed to go home, she was deterorating very rapidly and when she was bearly conscious and struggling to breathe, the doctors said there was nothing more they could do,so as it was her last wish, they baught her home on a Wednesday and she died on the Friday (24th march) after the 2nd jummah prayer azaan with all her family around her, at the age of 86. They buried her next to her daughter.

went as far as leeds and decided not 2 go. i hate my life.

oh...kasian...

im not sure if i shud go 2 prague now with my grandma not bein well, hate 2 bak out so soon 2 the trip but ill jus b thinkin abt my grandma dnt kno wot 2 do... so much simpler wen u wer little and yor prents wud jus tell u wot 2 do...

could it be??

can u beleev, all those weeks of takeouts buried in mozerella, cheesecakes, muffins, eatin out, greasy food etc and i havent put on any xtra weight! infact ive lost like half a pound (which is neither here nor ther but still!), i tld my mum tht and she sed "yeh wellu tend 2 burnit off wen u study so hard" am like "errr....yeh..sure" :-s i soo gotta strt studyin now....wel...from 2morro...

....and i found an interestin bit of gossip which is rare since nthin eva usually happens here, my sisters so resourceful! she always keeps me up2 date bless her but one thing she dnt keep me up2 date on is my lil bro and his "secrets" she reckon she dnt wanna break his trust or som crap like tht, coz he trusts her a lot she says tht he even lets her go in2 his wallet...so i told her, he lets me go in2 his wallet 2! as long as he dnt kno abt it.... heheee yeh i kno xactly wer he hides his wallet in tht mess he calls his room, he dnt tell me nething but my big bro always fills me in hahahahaa... serves him right for tellin every1 but me!

time to wake up and smell the coffee

end of term now, im goin bak up north 2morro night for a week, then am off 2 prague for 5 days (yeh i kno i sed i wasnt gonna go newer at easter and jus "study" the entire time but..err... im goin 2 prague now :-D) then bak home for 3 weeks then cmin bak 2 uni inshallah.

this weeks been rather cruel 2 me jus want the week 2 b ova but i know, everything happens 4 the greater good.....lookin 4ward 2 seein the family agen and esp lil H. spose 2 be goin out 2 eat 2nyt...meetin them in abt 20 mins actually. i cant rember last tym i cooked, i havent been eatin healthily these past few weeks, eatin out, take outs, crappy campus food... ok i shud get goin a bit soonish...ciao 4 now

does wot i say make sense to the less crazy ppl?

fun day 2day, had pizza wid isoc girls, then went round shoppin area wid fizah, tryn on dresses wed neva buy heheehe and fizah, dunno if u read my blog but if u do- im truly sorry abt the whole Mr. F situation...

....then we watched dikir barat, the msia night one i wantd 2 c it from the audiences perspectiv and then sena called me up abt seein som houses in canon park 4 september, we r well n truly screwed still havnt found a house but lets nt focus on tht... so yeh we were wlkn round canley singin, its quite a scary place at night but singin makes it seem nicer heheheee

dunno how sena does it but she can jus tlk to ne1, im tlkin total strangers and evrything and jus make conversation, its a well ace talent, i guess im more reserved, ther r som ppl tht u can jus tlk 2, i guess with a lot of ppl i can jus tlk and convo jus flows but wi som ppl, omg soo soo hard, i try but after a wyl i jus dnt kno wot 2 say and then its awkward and wen u do think of somthin 2 say, u dnt wana bcoz maybe theyl judge u (u kno who u r, if u read this blog ;-) )

....neways i digress....so then after wlkin 4 like aages we wer hungry so went 2 tescos 2 get somthin 2 eat, bort muffins but we didnt wanna cook so then we decided 2 go 2 nandos (for the vegetarian stuff) luckily we didnt go ther 2 late they wer still servin, clearin up, but still servin, i always hav a laff wi sena she tried to convince me again that the chips they serve, they mash and shape to get teh soft centre im like "wooooottt????" whoever herd of somthin so rediculous! hehehe mash and shape they do tht for waffles and smiley faces and alphabets but not for chips! i told her they jus peel, chop n fry!! we even askd the waiter and he sed peel, chop n fry! but senas still unconvinced...

new prayer room

went 2 openin of new prayer room 2day it's quite big with a kitchen, toilets and a lil libry, alhamdulillah. they had som good speakers at the ceremony, and i met yvonne ridley, felt quite honoured to meet her, u may recognise her name coz it was all over the media few years ago she's a journalist who was captured by the taliban and held captive, they let her go on the condition that she look up the quraan which she did and converted to islam my mum told me about her story wen it happend, wudda been nice 4 my mum 2 hav met her.

with or without you

See the stone set in your eyes

See the thorn twist in your side

I wait for you

Sleight of hand and twist of fate

On a bed of nails she makes me wait

And I wait without you

With or without you

With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore

You give it all but I want more

And I'm waiting for you

With or without you

With or without you

I can't live

With or without you

And you give yourself away

And you give yourself away

And you give

And you give

And you give yourself away

My hands are tied

My body bruised, she's got me with

Nothing to win and

Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away

And you give yourself away

And you give

And you give

And you give yourself away

With or without you

With or without you

I can't live

With or without you

With or without you

With or without you

I can't live

With or without you

With or without you