CAN YOU IMAGINE MY DAY?

Being a single mother of seven, can you imagine my day? Let me just enlighten you. There's the bread to earn to feed my brood of seven, i still have to eat to be able to carry on taking care of them. There's the clothes to wash, hang and when they are dried collected and folded. And if it rains the need to rush out and pick them up and put them aside until the sun shows up again and the sky ceases to shed tears. There's the house to clean. The food to prepare to feed them. And I have to send them to and from school/work. There's also the janatorial responsibilities and the weekly cleaning up of the house, the mopping etc.I tried to get the children to help, but they are also so busy with their extra curricullar activities and their homework. And they need to study..And I just don't have the energy nor the spirit to pick fights with them. I am the mother, i am also the father. It gets tiring, sooo tiring, but i always remember the story my father used to tell me as he was driving me back from school some 30 odd years ago.
We would see this friend of his who would ride his ramshackled bicycle along Hamilton Road in Penang going towards the flats, i can't even begin to recall what the flats are called(am i getting that old?) He would say, "Look at him, that's my friend, he's so hardworking. My friend only travels on his bicycle because he spends all his money to send his sons to England to read medicine." And i used to think..what would we do if we were put in this situation..Ten years later, as I was driving him instead, along the same road, we saw the same scene re-enacted..but this time, the man on the same ramshackled bicycle was grey and weary..his speed was slower, more taxing,and as he pushed one leg down on the paddle his body moved swayed forward, as if to help give the drive to propel his bike forward..My dad said, " See him, my friend, he has two sons who are now successful doctors, and he lives with one of them in a big bungalow, yet he is still riding his old bicycle." He went on to tell me about how humble his friend's sons are and how they contribute to the poor by offering free clinic sessions and how his friend still cycle just to bring himself back down to earth so that he will not forget his roots. His efforts are paid in full. God is Great, and He'll never short change you.
As I am typing this, my tears just kept pouring, because i miss my father so much. He has departed some 5 years ago, yet his silent wisdom and his patience still live within me. He was a great Dad, he was silent most of the time, he spoke only when necessary, he never exhibited his love with physical gestures, that sometimes we all took him for granted, until we lost him. Then we realised it wasn't his words, but the energy of LOVE that was eminating from his being which kept all of us together, huddled together in a warm and fuzzy surrounding, in the embrace of his LOVE, and when he went, we're all left cold and groping, even mom, infact, even more so Mom. I miss him so much.We all do..
Well back to my day, and my struggles, i guess I am giving all i've got, slogging day and night for my children's education, just like dad's friend. And I believe Allah will not shortchange me. He is Just and one day I will look back and say, I haven't done a bad job after all. But i don't have an old bicycle to ride..maybe i will just go for a walk..