Fall 2022 | Occasus | Issue 12

It Always Leads to Goodbye

My grandmother died on a Tuesday night when everyone was asleep. I got a call from my brother at 4:52 am. How do I remember the time exactly? Because my brother never calls. Especially not at 4:52 in the morning. He didn’t ease into it. There was no foreshadowing, no protagonist that just has that feeling. In fact, I felt nothing. There was just a faint ringing in my ears: “Grandma's dead,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied. That was it. I didn’t go back to sleep right away. In fact, I thought about sitting there, unmoving, in that same spot the rest of the night. I thought that it was only right for me to show my loss even if I couldn’t feel it yet. It wasn’t like I was putting on a show for anyone. I was alone. Still, I sat there a few minutes longer, thinking it was the right thing to do. Then I got tired and I went to sleep anyway.

The next morning I woke up and got on the first bus back home. My cousins came to pick me up from the bus stop and we drove back in silence. Not one word uttered. Yet, I could see their red rimmed puffy eyes as they gazed out the window. My eyes were so dry I thought that if I took a match to them, they’d light up.
 
I was my grandmother's favourite. I’m not just saying that out of petty sibling rivalry but because it was a fact. Our home was small and I had shared a room with her ever since my grandfather passed when I was just a small child. She took care of me when I was sick. She soothed me when I came home crying. When I was staring vacantly out the window, she sat next to me, not saying a word, just being there with me. She practically raised me in that small room. At night, I would fall asleep to her light snores and know there would be no monsters coming that night.

Then, she got sick. I’m not sure when it happened. One day, she was bringing me food and making me laugh and the next day she couldn’t get out of bed. I was scared. I kept waiting for her to get better but she never did. At night I would wake to her cries and run to grab heating pads, pills, and water. I couldn’t sleep. Not because she couldn’t either but because I was so overwhelmed with everything happening. We took her to see the doctors and they called it “old age.” So I sat there in that room watching her once vibrant soul dim, her voice quiet, until she was just a body lying on a bed. Months passed and I forgot how things used to be. I stopped watching her. She would call me to our room, and I would put my earphones in pretending not to hear. I knew it hurt her. I was her best friend.

Eventually, I moved away. I rented my own apartment out of the city and like a coward shirking my responsibilities, I left. I remember my last day, packing as she watched me from the bed. I told her I loved her and that I would visit soon.
 
“When will that be?” she asked softly in Urdu, “you know, I’m getting old.”

There was an apology in my eyes. “Soon,” I replied.

She smiled softly, kissed me on my cheek, and her eyes, though full of pain, forgave me.

She died before I could come back.

Now, standing at her funeral, surrounded by her siblings and the children of their children's children I feel the eyes of everyone. They all know I was closest to her. They're watching me, waiting for me to break. Yet, I still feel nothing. My father is sobbing beside me, crying over the loss of his mother. The sound of his cries twists something in my heart but my eyes stay dry. I watch as my older brother consoles my younger brother. They both cling to each other, tear-streaked faces gazing at the empty husk that was my grandmother. My mother is surrounded by my aunts who tearfully hold on to each other's arms. My father looks to me for comfort and I wrap my arms around him as he cries.

​Then they take the casket out. It's not until they are lowering her into the ground that I feel the tremors in my muscles. I stiffen, fighting every fiber of my being which is telling me to leave. To run. To go anywhere but here. The last speck of dirt covers up the grave and then, I leave. We believe that the soul remains in the body for 40 days after a passing. It's funny, really. I never went back to that grave. I wasn’t there for my grandmother in life or death. 

Mahrukh Malik is a second year student at Western University in the BA Psychology Program, minoring in Creative Writing.