Growing up with my mum and seeing her how she would always reach out her hand to a fellow Muslimah to give Salam, in the many years even before she passed, I have done so myself - sometimes extending my hand (don’t really do much of this after I’ve been told off a couple of times due to COVID) for Salam but mostly a nod, a smile or just giving Salam to any Muslim and/or Muslimah I meet. Actually I do this to even non-Muslims. And now that mum has gone, this little gesture makes me think of her all the time and somehow also knowing she is with me.
However, today it wasn’t the thought of her that came to mind but instead it was the thought of one of my late uncles. I suddenly heard his voice telling me how I have always been the first one to ask him how he is with a smile every time we met back then. And he would tell me this every time, with that joy, and perhaps pride, in his voice of my greetings to him. Al-fatehah.