The Second Time Around

Last November, damissus and I performed our second Umrah. This time we brought the kids along for their first, all except Arief, who had school and couldn’t get away. It’s a strange thing, standing in front of the Kaaba a second time. The first time you’re just trying to take it all in, half in shock that you’re actually there (you can read about that trip here). The second time round, things feel a little different.

Madinah greeted us first, in the hours just before Fajr, as it usually does for most itineraries. We stood in front of Masjid Nabawi in that particular pre-dawn dark, the minarets lit up gold against a sky that hadn’t yet decided to lighten. Getting everyone into one frame took some doing, but we managed it, more than once actually. There’s something about that mosque before Fajr that makes you want to keep the phone out a little longer than you should, even with the cold and the pull toward the prayer hall.

Right after Fajr that first morning, we wandered off for rose sherbet near the haram, the kind served in little cones with a flower petal on top. Small thing, but it’s the small things that end up mattering when you look back. Everyone pulling faces for the camera, one of us mid laugh, another mid grimace at the taste. Honestly those photos might be my favourite of the whole trip.

Then Makkah, and the Kaaba itself, and the crowds that never really thin out no matter the hour. We did our tawaf in ihram, all of us together, and there’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over you in that moment even with thousands of people moving around you. I caught a selfie mid crowd, exhausted, sweaty, glasses fogged up a bit, and it’s probably the most honest photo from the whole trip.

Missing Arief was felt, that trip, especially in the group shots where there was an obvious gap. But these things happen. School doesn’t wait, and Umrah usually can. We took plenty of photos to bring back to him, and he’ll get his turn.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the mosque architecture or the crowds, though both were something to behold. It was watching the kids go through their own version of what I went through the first time. That mix of awe and tiredness and quiet reflection on their faces. You forget sometimes that they’re not kids anymore, not really. Watching them navigate ihram, tawaf, the whole rhythm of it, made the trip feel less like a family holiday and more like something we did together as equals.

We’ll go again, insyaAllah. Next time, all of us.