black gloves

This week I bought black gloves. I have seen some very conservative ladies wear them with their abaayas, but I never thought I'd have any.

The thing is that I got henna on Wednesday. I went to a friend's house in the village so she could do my henna. During this time my friend told me that another friend's grandmother had died the night before. So there would be three days of mourning in the village.

But, right away I knew that I couldn't show up to sit with the family with henna on my hands. You only get henna when you're happy or celebrating.

So, I bought gloves out of respect for a mourning family.

I went to the funeral on Thursday afternoon. It always seems so weird for me to be at a funeral seeing people smile. They smiled when I greeted them and then they listened to the Quran reading. They wept aloud as they mourned together. There's something really heavy about being with people who are mourning. Their sadness really touches my heart and I mourn for them. I pray for them.

After the mourning time the ladies greet each other again and talk in groups. I was able to express my sympathy to the family. When they said, "thank you for coming," my heart was full. I hope that in some way I blessed this family in their time of mourning.

Really, I wanted to do so much more for them.

Here's what my hands looked like when I took off the black gloves. Faith came to get henna with me. This was her first henna experience!!