09/06/2026
There are some people who enter your life so gently, so quietly, that you don’t even realize at first that they are becoming essential to your breathing.
Hannah is that kind of person.
For almost a decade, she has stood beside me not loudly, not seeking recognition but with a presence so steady, so sincere, that it became a comfort I didn’t have to question. I have watched her grow, watched her nurture her family, watched her carry both love and anxiety with a softness that never hardened her spirit. She has seen me in all my seasons…my chaos, my overwhelm, my exhaustion and never once met me with harshness. Only with gentleness and forgiveness. Only with care.
Hannah is the quiet to my storm.
There is something powerful about knowing that when you look to your right, someone is there not out of obligation, but out of dedication. The one who shows up. The one who anticipates the days I don’t have the strength and is there before I even arrive. The one who understands the method to my madness without needing it explained.
Hannah has always been that for me.
Then there are the moments that bind our hearts in ways words never fully can.
When my daughter struggled to feed her baby, when she was trying to build up her milk supply, something so fragile and sacred, I reached out to Hannah. Without hesitation, she said, “I’ll be there.” And she was. Within half an hour, she placed nourishment at my doorstep, her very own, given with love. She did this again and again until my daughter found her footing. My grandson carries a piece of her.
Yes, Hannah is Luqman’s Milk mother.
What do you call someone who feeds your family, who steadies your spirit, who loves you in action and not just in words? What do you call someone who becomes woven into your life so completely that you forget where you end and they begin? I call her my sister. I call her family.
And now, as she prepares to leave to return to her own family, to a life that calls her elsewhere, I find myself holding two truths at once. I am so deeply happy for her. And I am grieving a presence that has been a constant in my life for nearly a decade.
Hannah, I don’t know if you fully understand what you have been to me.
I don’t know if you see the depth of the space you hold in my heart. But I pray that Allah does and that He rewards you for every quiet sacrifice, every moment of showing up, every ounce of care you gave so freely.
May He be pleased with you. May He expand your life with goodness. May He bless your family the way you have blessed mine. And even as distance stretches between us, know this: you will never lose me.
Hannah you will always have a sister in me.
Because I believe that hearts that love each other sincerely can not be separated by oceans. And if you make it to Jennah and don’t see me. Please ask for me by name and plead on my behalf.
Because like souls dwell together here and in the afterlife and I want to be there with you. Just know if I make it there InShaAllah I will be looking for you. I love you. Always. In the Dunya and InShaAllah in the Akhira!
There are some people whose love is not spoken loudly but lived, proven, and poured out in moments that matter most.
Hannah is that kind of person.
I’ve come to realize that her gift isn’t just kindness. It’s presence. It’s the kind of presence that doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t calculate, doesn’t wait for convenience. It moves. It answers. It arrives. Always within half an hour.
I remember one moment so clearly. We were working with a sister who was trying to escape a situation no one should ever have to endure. She had been given a narrow window just two hours to gather her life and make it to safety. Two hours to choose what pieces of her world she could carry with her, and what she would have to leave behind.
I was on the phone, feeling the weight of it all, trying to figure out how we would make this happen while already stretched thin. And as I spoke, Hannah responded the only way she knows how: “I’ll be there.”
Within half an hour, she was at that sister’s door, her husband and children with her… not as bystanders, but as helpers. As hands. As hearts. Together, they moved through that home with urgency and care, helping her sort through her belongings, choosing what mattered most, packing not just items but dignity, hope, and survival into bags.
Hannah didn’t just help her leave. She helped her live. She made sure that sister got to safety. That her needs were met. That she was not alone in one of the most terrifying transitions of her life.
THAT IS WHO HANNAH IS!!
Not someone who wonders if she should show up but someone who simply does. And now, as I sit with the reality that she will no longer be just “half an hour away,” I feel the magnitude of that absence in a way words can barely hold. Because Hannah being nearby was never just about distance. It was about certainty.
It was about knowing that in moments of urgency, of need, of quiet overwhelm or loud crisis there was someone I could call who would respond not with hesitation, but with action.
And that kind of love… that kind of reliability… that kind of embodied mercy is rare!
Hannah, you have been that mercy in my life, and in the lives of so many others. You have shown me what it means to serve with sincerity, to love through action, and to give without keeping score.
Even as distance stretches between us, that truth does not change. You may no longer be half an hour away,
but you will always be close in the ways that matter most.
And I will carry the imprint of your presence with me always.
-Sakinah
