I need to be honest with you.
This Ramadan hurt a little. Not in a bad way but in that deep, quiet way where you know you could have done more and you didn't. Where the alarm went off for Fajr and you turned it off. Where Ramadan came in like a promise and somehow, somewhere, life got in the way again. Like it did last year. Like we swore it wouldn't this time.
I don't say that to make you feel guilty. I say it because I felt it too. Because most of us did. And there is something uniquely painful about a blessed month slipping through your fingers while you watch.
Twenty nights gone. Just like that.
But I am writing to you tonight because it is not over.
We have 10 nights left, the greatest nights of the entire year. A window that opens once, stays open for ten days, and then closes completely until next Ramadan. And none of us know if we'll see next Ramadan. I don't say that to scare you. I say it because it's true, and we both know it.
So here is what I decided. I am giving every single one of these 10 nights. Because somewhere hidden inside them is the Night of Power and I am not going to pick one night and hope I guessed right. I want my giving to land on it. So I'm giving on all ten. No gaps.
And if your Zakat is due, these are the nights. Don't let it sit any longer.
Because while I was sitting with that decision, I couldn't stop thinking about the children who are starving right now. Not metaphorically. Actually starving. Children who will not have an Eid table. Who have no outfit to be excited about. Who are spending these sacred, blessed nights hungry and cold and unseen. While we plan and shop and get distracted by things that will not matter when this window closes.
That's what made everything simple for me. We have been given so much. These nights have been handed to us. And there are children who need someone, us. To think of them inside the most generous window of the year.
This is the part of the story where we decide what kind of Ramadan this was. Not the first twenty nights. These ten. The ones that are still ours. The ones that haven't been written yet.
I want these nights to be so full, so intentional, that by the time next Ramadan comes I don't feel that ache again.
I want to look back and know that when the window was open, I didn't hesitate. And I don't want you to miss it either.
So I'm going to show up in your inbox every single night for these last 10 nights. A reminder. A nudge. A hand reaching out to say the night is here, don't let it slip.
We'll do this together, one night at a time, so that neither of us looks back with that ache again.
Join me. Let's make these the nights that change everything for us, and for the children who cannot wait until next Ramadan.
For the children who cannot wait until next Ramadan,
Hafsa