Issue #2: Grief
In This Issue:
Essay: Grief is always waiting to happen
Fiction: The Wedding Souvenirs
Watch: “We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it” - Nora McInerny (Ted)
Prompts: Remembering and Learning from Loss
Essay: Grief is always waiting to happen
“We are never finished with grief. It is part of the fabric of living. It is always waiting to happen.” – V.S. Naipaul
Grief cannot be escaped. The idea of it “always waiting to happen,” is profoundly true. It feels like an ice bucket, poured over our heads, forcing us to accept the heartbreaking reality of losing loved ones. There’s no remedy for the tears triggered by memories of people we’ll never hear or see again. If there’s a skill attached to managing grief without the acidic feel of heartburn, I haven’t mastered it yet.
As someone who believes in the Afterlife, grief defines life into an audition for me. As though my loved ones have crossed a barrier where they can finally find relief, while I’m still on the queue, practicing lines and expressions, praying not to fumble.
Grief confuses me too. How can someone I’ve known for a significant part of my life suddenly turn voiceless and motionless? The weight of the knowledge is an anvil over my heart, and yet, grief also feels like nothing – a detachment from the world. Sometimes, it feels like I’m the one that doesn’t exist, and everything around me is a mirage that could disappear with a single touch.
Grief is always waiting to happen, lurking and waiting for its time – as proven by four significant losses in my life.
RJ
RJ was one of my best friends – sarcastic, hilarious and armed with big dreams. She had the gift of making everyone around her laugh. Warm-hearted and wonderful, she’d tease me relentlessly about my quirkiness. I could never be mad at her.
I found out about her death two months late. The day started out ordinary, I was about to review a friend’s essay when my phone rang. Because I was hungry, and had a plate of indomie beside me, I thought of calling back later. But I picked up. The caller was sobbing and speaking incoherently. I heard: “dead,” “she’s dead.” It took me a minute to understand who she was referring to: our RJ was gone, killed in a car accident en route to her brother’s traditional wedding. I stumbled out of the room, screaming and choking with tears, alarming my family.
I’d sent her a message a few days after she passed away, asking about her plans on an impending public holiday. The message remained on one tick. I thought, “there she goes again, going MIA without notice.” We’d gotten used to her on and off appearances in our lives, but she’d promised to do better.
I rewatched our old videos from secondary school in disbelief, and thought, “How could that vibrant person with lofty dreams of creating a conglomerate she termed RJ Industries, be gone?”
RJ was her own favourite target for jokes, teaching us to exhale and learn the freeing art of laughing at ourselves.
M.A.T
My brilliant cousin. A medical student with a passion for volunteering and a yearning for adventures. Regardless of his younger age, I looked up to him. Even more so after his demise, it’s a rare feat to achieve the unanimous tributes he received.
On a Sunday morning, I woke up to a message on our family group chat, informing us that he’d been on a boat that capsized. His body was missing. I called my sister for clarification, before diving into social media for more information. I frantically looked at my phone, he’d informed me about his most recent travel adventure and sought my prayers. His last message to me was: “My traveling came a bit early.”
I didn’t scream when I found out about his body’s recovery. I listened to my mother on the phone with a strange calmness. I’d hoped against hope that he’d swum to a nearby village, and he was struggling to find a phone to reach out.
I dropped my phone and scrambled out of the room to inform whoever was available. Streaming down the stairs, the tears came.
I have an image of him seated in the living room, on the couch beside the TV, engrossed in a virtual meeting. I recall thinking, “He’s going somewhere. He’s going to do great things in life.”
Despite his short time on earth, he WAS an achiever. From him, I’ve learnt one thing: Nothing beats the wealth of good character.
Hajiya Z
Hajiya Z, our nanny and adopted family member for over 20 years. A fiercely loyal woman who believed she was over 100 years old – she wasn’t. The core of her family, she devoted her life to holding their hands and wiping their tears.
On the morning she passed away, I walked past her bedroom and heard her loud and throaty snores. She’d complained of difficulty sleeping a few days ago, before she visited the hospital. I was relieved to hear her snoring – later, a relative informed me that what I’d heard could have been the sounds of death.
We found her motionless on her bed, the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Before then, I’d never laid my eyes on a corpse.
This death, unlike the others, where my body shook, and my voice cracked, twisted me into a frozen and puzzled person – I sat on the floor, unfazed by the bustling activities around me. The to-do-list was long: a death certificate, arrangements to convey her body to her family – urgent activities.
My cousin said, “I thought she’d live forever,” and honestly, despite knowing that it was impossible, I think I believed it too. Her powerful presence and booming voice garlanded her with an eternal feel.
I learnt the importance of loyalty from her; in everything she did, she was trustworthy. Hajiya Z would never be a party to treachery, no matter the enticing offer.
Auntie M
Auntie M had been diagnosed with cancer two years ago. A beautiful woman with beautiful soul, a math guru, and our cool-hijabi Auntie. Everyone’s favourite, everyone’s confidante.
When M.A.T passed away, she called my mother and cried.
When Hajiya Z passed away, she called my mother and consoled her.
I was at work when I learnt of her passing. I listened to my sister’s voice on the phone, informing me about an inevitability that we knew but didn’t want to believe. I sat down on the black couches in the office complex’s lobby, dazed. Somehow, I was able to walk to the lifts. I pressed our office’s floor number and rode up with a blankness in my mind, and an uproar in my heart. I kept telling myself that it would be okay, that I could survive the rest of the workday. Upon reaching the office doors, I froze and broke down. I entered the washroom and stared outside the window, gawking at the humans driving on the streets – going about their lives, unaware of my intrusion into their lives.
She was a voice for those who preferred silence, a champion for everyone and anyone.
Before her diagnosis, she’d moved to a different country for her PhD. She was starting a new life, showing us that anything was possible even at an older age when one becomes saddled with responsibility. I was in awe of her determination and strength.
I learnt too many things from her to note down, but the most important was her unyielding support to her loved ones.
I have older griefs, but the closeness of these recent losses in my adulthood have reengineered my mind to accept the lack of ultimate control in my hands.
Our lives aren’t defined by the number of years we spend on earth, but how we spend it, and the avenues with exert our energies in.
Grief is painful, and we don’t move on from it – impossible. We grow with it, as the memories shape into lessons of lives well lived.
Fiction: The Wedding Souvenirs
Kaka coerced her granddaughter, Samira, into her bedroom by pushing her bowl of acha away.
“Acha again?”
“It’s the healthiest breakfast,” Samira said.
“Says who?”
“Faruk.”
Kaka grabbed Samira’s arms. “Come,” she said. “Look at what I can do.”
Samira didn’t argue; she yearned for change and moving in with Kaka had saved her from crumbling. Her grandfather, Abba passed away two months after Faruk died, leaving Kaka alone in a five-bedroom bungalow. Samira chucked her life into four suitcases and waved goodbye to her parents’ creeping stalking shadows. They’d lost the language of understanding their widowed daughter, ever since they found her hopping in the courtyard, weeping, and cracking her knuckles. At Kaka’s house, she could be sad without earning pain-stricken looks.
“Look at what I can do,” Kaka repeated. Her eyes sparkled as she guided Samira on a tour of her dresser. Kaka had replaced her cylindrical glass bottles of humrah perfumes with plastic cups, ablution kettles, plastic mats, straw mats, and serving trays. All the items had rectangle stickers, with ‘Congratulations on your wedding,’ at the top and ‘Cut-cee: Brides or Grooms family,’ at the bottom.
Samira held her breath. The mirror above the dresser showed a confused 26-year-old with drying white bits of acha on her late husband’s white t-shirt, and a euphoric 80-year-old woman, with tap-dancing eyes. Samira’s eyes skirted around the bedroom, sniffing for more unusual items. The bed, as always was immaculately made, as though the sheets were tattooed on the bed’s frame. Try as she might, Samira had never been able to replicate Kaka’s skills. Her mother told her that Kaka made it compulsory for all her children to arrange their beds in the morning. Samira’s mother and her siblings would do their best before going to school, but, upon return they’d find signs of their mother’s perfectionist touch on their beds. Every day, until they started emptying the house for her and Abba.
“Kaka, why are all these wedding souvenirs here?”
“Look at them,” Kaka urged.
Samira noticed that many of them carried dates as old as her parents’ marriage.
Kaka encouraged Samira to analyse the items, to feel them.
Samira humoured Kaka, even as her legs cursed and her heart wailed. Her grandmother, her safe space, was becoming senile.
“All these marriages,” Kaka exclaimed. “They still exist.”
“O-kay,” Samira said. “Alhamdulillah? Good for them?”
Is there a worse heartbreak than watching a dynamic woman shrinking back to childhood? Samira bit her tongue: of course, a worse heartbreak existed. She had experienced it, and Kaka too had gone through the terror of waking up to a life without a husband you loved, not tolerated, but loved.
Kaka nudged Samira’s shoulders. She pleaded, “Let me do it for you.”
Samira couldn’t believe that she would be the one to inform her mother about Kaka’s dire situation. They’d feared the worst when Abba passed away. But Kaka surprised them by remaining sturdy. She’d handled widowhood better than Samira. Perhaps lengthier marriages equipped one better for the inevitable separation caused by death.
“Tell me everything about the type of man you want,” Kaka said.
Samira led Kaka to the bed and knelt beside her.
Kaka giggled. “Are you shy?”
“Kaka, do you feel okay?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve arranged wedding souvenirs from decades ago as though they’re photo frames, and now you’re asking me about my preferences?”
“I want to see you married before I die. You’re my eldest grandchild…”
Samira smiled when her soul ached to run to her mother’s former bedroom – now hers – to cry.
“What does that have to do with the wedding souvenirs?”
Kaka smiled.
“Abba and I arranged all of them.”
“That’s nice…”
It was worse than Samira feared; Kaka was imagining Abba’s presence.
“Abba and I set up all those couples. Let me set you up Samira.”
Samira bowled over, relieved.
“Get up, let me show you.”
Samira listened silently as Kaka explained.
“This cup? Hamza and Umma? You know them. Their daughter has two children. Abba saw him looking at her. He told Hamza to come home, and we interviewed him. He was so shy, but he confessed, you know Abba had that gift, I could never pretend with him…
“I spoke to Umma’s parents, and they were happy. Hamza’s job was very good, you know they moved to Saudi? They’re still there.
“That kettle on top, Ibrahim and Hauwa’u, they visit me every month. Still happy. Abba and I had a 100% success rate.”
Samira didn’t argue.
“Let me try with you.”
“I was already married Kaka.”
“He’s dead.”
“I know.”
“You’re not even 30 yet.”
“I know.”
“Please consider.”
“It’s me and you Kaka, two widows.”
“Samira, I am old. I will die too.”
“Faruk was younger than you, and he’s not here is he?” Samira said. She stood up and outstretched her arms and legs. “Where should I return these relics to? Kaka this is a mess.”
***
Kaka entered her bedroom and switched on the lights. Her perfumes were back. The absence of the wedding souvenirs hit her violently.
She headed for her bed and pulled the bed side drawer open. Her Abba’s face in black and white made her shudder. It was a reminder, “He’s a memory, he doesn’t exist anymore.”
She held the picture up.
“Samira doesn’t want to marry again,” she said. “I don’t think that shirt she wears is clean…it’s okay. You rest, I’ll keep trying.”
Watch
We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it - Nora McInerny
Prompt
What do you want to remember about those you’ve lost?
What did you learn from them?
Grief is a universal experience - share your stories!