Losing a child brings you closer: Zara Noor Abbas, Asad Siddiqui on coping with grief together

Naumaan, the host, opened the conversation with an anecdote about how he also lost one of his first babies to relate and create an environment of trust and vulnerability. Relating to the thought, Zara shared, “You know, having children together is a huge blessing but losing a child together also makes you very tight. Your bond grows incredibly close because you spend that tough time together.

The Ehd-e-Wafa actor added that good, cheery times are inevitable in relationships but the difficult ones make you understand each other even more. “Everyone spends a good time, you have to and you will.  But when we lost our child, we grew very close. Only he mattered at that time. I’d have all my things at one side, and yell ‘Asad, Asad, Asad’ all the time.”

Thinking in hindsight, the couple says they owe their bond to God and realised how all of this was for their own benefit. “Maybe Allah wanted to bring us closer, and he wanted us to realise that you should pause in life, and take breaks from work to prioritise family. That’s what we learnt,” she said.

Asad also chimed in to agree with the host on how men, despite being in great grief, cannot completely understand how the woman, the mother, feels. “She was very upset. As you said, we (men) can’t understand it all because the woman, who goes through all kinds of all changes, hormonal, physical, mental, all kinds of changes, is harder on them. And I would just tell her to not worry and believe in God’s will. Maybe it wasn’t the time for them (the child) to come.”

Zara also agreed that you can’t change God’s plan. “I even asked my bhabhi (sister-in-law) to go shop for the kid. She came back with cartons of stuff from America but you see, if Allah does not want to send someone in your family, He won’t, no matter how much you plan.”

Asad also highlighted the guilt and self-blame Zara felt after the loss of their child. Zara, too, in a previous podcast with Frieha Altaf, shed light on the same. “I did [blame myself] a point. I thought maybe I didn’t eat right, maybe I didn’t make myself strong enough, maybe I should have lost more weight before conceiving, become thinner, maybe I should have had an intake of vitamins, maybe I should’ve taken folic acid. But all of that is a ‘maybe’. God gives a child to even those who aren’t physically stable. He gives to those He wants to give to and takes from those He wants to take from.”

Zara and Asad took a leap of faith in one another when they married each other in 2017 after being divorced once. The couple, has since, been in a loving, supportive relationship and keep sharing updates about their travel, life, family and more on social media.