…until it’s gone! This is such a true phrase, and one that I am understanding more with each passing day. Today, when I was trying to sign into my Gmail, it said, “The username or password is not correct”. I thought it was perhaps I spelled my username/password wrong, so I slowly retyped it.

No result.

My heart skipped a beat as I quickly realized what happened. I’ve been hacked into.

Quick! I must sign into my Gmail to notify all my friends! Oh.

Well, gotta make sure all my online documents are intact! Oh.

Maybe I can at least sign into Blogger or check my Calendar? Oh.

I didn’t realize how dependent I had become on one corporation until now. My mind started to reel as I had no idea on what exactly to do. I quickly contacted Google and filled out their account information sheet to reaccess my account. (As a sidenote, one of the most interesting input forms on there was to mention five frequently-mentioned people that you email – that took me a while as I was thinking of people I email daily. Try it yourself:). Alhamdulillah (all praise be to Allah), my account got reestablished in less than an hour and I was able to happily stare at my inbox once more.

This year was our first year having Taraweeh (nightly Ramadan prayers) in a hotel instead of at our masjid (Dar-us-Salaam) because there were too many people and there are zoning issues going around. Many people weren’t happy, but it got me thinking…

Imagine life without your community. Imagine life without Islam. You really don’t know what you got until it’s gone…