Does compassion only show up for the wealthy? Seeing my parents struggle as a South Asian family in an Arab Muslim country is breaking me
As-Salamu Alaikum. I need to get this off my chest because I have no one to talk to. Sometimes I look around and wonder if there’s any place left where people truly care about patients… where suffering actually means something. Watching my mother in pain hurts me every single day. Living in Bahrain as a South Asian family, we often feel invisible, like our worth is measured by money. Every door seems to ask for payment, every solution depends on insurance we don’t have. It feels like compassion carries a price tag we can’t meet. I watch my mother hurt and I feel completely helpless. I try to stay strong for her, but my body is tired and my mind is worn out with anxiety. Some days I barely feel like I’m standing. I keep asking myself what kind of daughter I am if I can’t protect her. She deserves comfort and peace, yet she faces tests, bills, delays, and hardship, and I just sit there, praying and wanting to do more. It pains me how the world seems to bow to money. If you have wealth, hospitals open up and you get treated quickly. You can buy comfort and the care you need. But if you’re poor or an expatriate, your pain can be ignored. You wait in lines, plead, and watch your hope thin while others count notes. Wallahi, my heart feels like it’s being squeezed sometimes. I ask Allah to witness the neglect, the injustice, and the coldness we face. I pray that those who choose profit over mercy will be answerable to the One who sees all. I ask Allah for halal rizq, not for luxury, but so I can care for my parents the way they deserve and help others who suffer quietly, like my mother is now. That hope feels far away, a faint light I can barely reach, but I hold on with whatever strength I have. This life is short and these trials are hard, but they are temporary. Jannah is our true home. Still, my soul sometimes feels so exhausted and heavy that I think I cannot bear more. I keep praying, because prayer is the only thing that keeps me together right now.