Re: how to help my mother?
It’s understandable…I think that parents (even those who live in the US) get disturbed because many of them grew up in Pakistan…they know the mentality of the people (the comments, the judgment, the stereotypes, etc) all to well. Your mom can even try the “killing them with kindness” approach and getting some clothes for the relative who made the comment about the clothes. When you pay a lot of money for a trip, you can’t let these things get you down. She should enjoy her visit as it may be a long time before she goes back again.
People fall sick…not necessarily because of nazar…but because they ate something that disagreed with them or because they were being careless. One of the problems with our culture is that people blame everything that happens on “nazar” and that exempts them from individual responsibility. That’s dangerous. God forbid if something negative happens …your mom will NEVER be able to find out “who” exactly was the person who put the nazar on her…and it may not be nazar…it could be a test from Allah…or whatever. There’s no definite way of knowing why something happened. That said…she shouldn’t get so worked up over this. She’ll never know…so that energy she’s using to worry about these things…should be used to in more positive ways…like praying/shopping/spending time with family who cares about her, etc.