We would like to thank Pretty Hussain, who has contributed the article below.
Written whilst reflecting during Ramadan, Pretty shares with us the impact the installation of a through-floor lift has made to her life, and how it’s about more than just physical access:
The World Upstairs – Pretty Hussain
For most of my life, upstairs was a place I could only imagine.
In my childhood homes, I spent 22 years downstairs. My bedroom was downstairs. My world was downstairs. Everyone else lived upstairs, laughed upstairs, had their rooms upstairs. I never felt left out by them – but I felt left out by life. Sometimes I would hear them giggling and moving around, and it would ache in a way I never knew how to explain. It wasn’t jealousy. It was a quiet sadness for a world I could hear but never touch.
When we moved unexpectedly from home to home for three years, I thought maybe things would change. But I ended up in the sitting room. Still waiting. Still watching everyone else go up and down so easily. It felt like upstairs belonged to other people, and downstairs was the only part of the world made for me. I learned to accept it, but deep down I always wondered what it would feel like to have a bedroom upstairs, to close a door, to look out of a different window, to feel like I truly belonged in every part of my own home.
Now, my lift is here. And suddenly, upstairs is not just a dream or a sound through the ceiling. It is my space. My bedroom. My quiet. My independence.
The first time I went up, it felt like stepping into a house I had never been allowed to live in. It felt like a door opening that had been closed my whole life, a part of life that had been waiting for me all along.
My mum and dad keep telling everyone on the phone that I’m smiling like it’s my birthday. And it’s true. I feel light. I feel excited in a way I haven’t felt in years. To other people, this might seem like something small. Just a lift. Just another floor. But to me, it is everything. It is years of waiting, years of imagining, years of feeling separate – softly, quietly – finally changing.
I’m grateful, but I’m also grieving the years I spent waiting. Both feelings can exist together. There is joy in what I have now, and tenderness for the little girl who waited so long.
But today, I choose to see this as a beginning.
I’m not just going upstairs.
I’m stepping into a part of life I’ve waited for since I was a child.
Alhamdulillah for Allah, who knew every quiet prayer in my heart, every moment I felt left behind, and every hope I carried silently. He opened this door for me in His perfect timing, in a way I never thought possible.
Alhamdulillah for my mum and dad, who fought for this, who believed I deserved more, who told everyone how happy I looked because my happiness is their happiness. They never stopped trying to give me a fuller life, even when it was hard.
And thank you to my siblings, who have helped me make this room beautiful, who never made me feel different, who shared their space and their excitement with me. Now I get to be upstairs with them – not just in sound, but in presence.
This is more than a lift.
This is dignity.
This is belonging.
This is a childhood dream finally catching up with me.
