Essay: Dispatches from a Grief Unabated

By: Sara Azeem

I received the news of my father’s untimely passing in the middle of the night. Almost a year ago, around the same time my husband had lost his father. That was the beginning of the pandemic and now we were a year into it.

Abbu turned eighty this year. I always thought he’d outlive my mother. There had been near misses due to accidents and acute illness in the past when the possibility of him leaving us became all too real. But I never thought it would come to pass the way it did.

It was past 2 am in the Netherlands and I couldn’t sleep thinking each minute about him, checking my phone every few minutes for updates from my siblings attending to my father in Pakistan. His departure was quick; one moment he was there, the next all life had left him. My sister who held him in his last moments told me it was as surreal for her as it was for me, thousands of miles away. I guess death is such an incomprehensible phenomenon that it eludes us even when we have seen it. Watching Abbu’s serene face over a video call made impossible for me to grasp the reality. A cruel joke. He was fast asleep and would wake up any time. His faced showed no sign of illness or distress. I wanted to wake him up but we had been strongly conditioned to not wake sleeping parents. He’d be upset. I wouldn’t dare. 

What I wouldn’t have given to see that frown.

Last night while talking to Ammi, I heard her use the words demise and Abbu in the same breath. I didn’t know that a fact known to me spoken another way had the ability to rend my heart the way it did. Or was it that the confirmation came from my mother that it felt like such a blow? I had imagined this day so many times. I had lived it in so many nightmares. I had felt the breath of its potential on my face. Yet the absoluteness of it is so visceral that words fail—miserably. I notified my friends with a short text message. Why even tell them? What did it matter? Those who were in Pakistan couldn’t be there as all my family members were exposed to COVID now. Why tell them, I thought, but did so anyway. It only dawned on me later how communal a thing grief is. You’re not supposed to go through it alone. I didn’t have anyone to hold me except my husband and that was enough until it wasn’t. The more people I spoke to, the more intensely I felt the absence of people around me who I could talk to about Abbu; those who knew him and would share their memories of him. There were things to be done though. My mother hadn’t fully recovered yet and there were rites to be performed and words to be spoken. The wonders of technology felt grossly inadequate. The grief was too big to carry in the absence of my family, its weight too crushing.

*************

In the short span of a year, my husband and I both lost our fathers (to different causes) and the grief was compounded by our inability to travel on account of the pandemic. I knew how suffocating it was for him. It’s one thing to see it but quite another to go through it yourself. Grief is as tactile as it is visceral. There is a finality in the rituals of a burial. A semblance of closure. A final goodbye before the remnants of your loved one are laid to rest. While the burial rites were being performed back home, I sat here piecing it all together in my head. I went over the series of acts while wrestling with the what ifs and what could’ve beens of my father’s life and how my worst fear came true.

In that absolute silence of my house, deprived of the consolation that my family found in holding each other or my father’s things, I found myself sensitised to the impact of the only thing I had: words. I felt each word spoken or written to me. The choice of words suddenly mattered so much. I found myself noticing the tone and inflections, and whether what was offered was conventional or heartfelt. It presented people to me in a new light. It’s astonishing how much you can learn about a person from the way they commiserate. 

A kind acquaintance, upon finding out about my father, humbly offered support. They thought I had closer friends who held me through this difficult time. If only it were true. I was painfully aware of what my close friends could offer: words — often hastily composed running about their daily lives. Whether miles apart or from the same city, their haste predicated on the assumption that we had other people we’d be closer to. Other who? The-ones-back-home lay the responsibility of support with the-ones-we-live-closer-to and the latter in turn toss it to the-ones-back-home, assuming the former know us better. Perhaps only an emigre can understand the alienation of another emigre — used to living in fragments and partialities. Never wholly this or that. We can make these partialities work for us, until a moment like this occurs and grief pulls the rug from under our feet. 

Burial is understood to be laying the departed to rest. But for those of us forced to distance-grieve, we stay trapped in those hours leading up to the burial. Nothing gets laid to rest. 

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Abbu had spent almost half a century on this earth when I was born, the days of his youth long behind him. He had experienced the loss of his parents, his siblings, seen people come and go, raised multiple kids already. It was as if he was on his way back from the summit when I had just begun my ascent. My relationship with him was not always easy or uncomplicated. We were too far apart on the trail to be able to hear each other clearly. I fawned over him growing up and was heartbroken when I realised that I was too far for him to even notice me clearly. By the time he saw me, life had taken too much from him to offer me anything but a wishful gaze. I held that gaze, sometimes begrudging, other times questioning, but forever longing. 

He used to grumble that I didn’t call him as frequently as he’d like. “Let us know once in a while that you’re fine,” he’d say. I would be livid hearing those words. What did that mean? Even on the worst of my days, I could never be a child breaking down in front of her parent or desiring to be consoled. I dare not burden him, he’d seen too much trouble. I didn’t want to add to it. I only wanted attention and affection that were not tainted by what had come before me. I kept waiting for him to tell me that he missed me, that he wanted to see me and until I heard those words I had vowed to not tell him how I was. We spoke nevertheless. I would impassively report I was fine, we would talk about the weather, discuss local politics and our conversation would come to an end. He never told me how he was. I knew he had health issues that came with age and a way of holding back from those far away. I relied on my mother and siblings for that information. There was a the long list of reasons that had gradually turned my affection to an estrangement of sorts. Sometimes I would imagine a time when he wouldn’t be around any longer and cry myself to sleep as if I’d already lost him. 

The last time I spoke to Abbu could hardly be called a conversation. I had called to inquire about his health. I was worried about him. He mustered up the strength to tell me he was fine and then my sister interrupted saying he was too weak to talk more. I didn’t want him to expend energy or get in the way of his care so I hung up. I keep returning to that moment in my head with the unspoken words on my lips. 

I remain an ellipsis.