Confession#23
29th August, 2014
My grandpa
died on this date a year ago. I was in college when he passed away. He was
feeling sick in the morning that day, and I was leaving for my college. My
instincts were telling me that it could be bad news. But I didn’t miss my
college for him. Neither my parents told me to do so. So I missed seeing him in
his death bed. I last saw him maybe on eid the previous year. He gave me
salami. I could remember his old wrinkled smile. His eyes used to sparkle. And
I can see how lonely he used to be without dadu.
I wasn’t
there when he took his last breath. In fact I was barely there the time he was
alive. I’m a bad grand-daughter. Really bad. I hardly went down his apartment
to see him. I didn’t take care of him. He was there, just one floor beneath us,
he was there the whole time. But I didn’t bother to just say hi or ask him about
his health.
And I chose not
to see him at his vulnerable state. Not because I care. But because he barely
existed to me. And I barely existed to him. But I cried. I cried when my chachu
scolded me for acting all normal, tearless. I cried complaining that I had to
go to college on that particular day and no one bothered to give me the news of
my grandpa’s death. I cried because I couldn’t feel the loss, I couldn’t get
attached to my own grandpa and grandma like everybody else. That I’ve been so
selfish granddaughter who didn’t attend her grandpa’s funeral. I cried so
miserably but I didn’t feel a thing for him being dead. He was still a complete
stranger to me. My chachu felt sorry for me seeing me all weeping, he showed me
a picture of my dead grandpa on his mobile, I just glanced at it. Where is he
now? How’s he doing? Is he with grandma?
There’s gonna be a milad arranged today in
regard to his death anniversary, everyone was talking about it. And eventually
I remembered this date.
He used to
come to our house for dinner every night. My mom used to cook the dishes. He
had a great taste for food. He had this ceramic white and blue glass. He used
to drink in it. Now I look at the glass every night in my dining table and it kind
of creeps me out. It feels so weird even touching the glass and drinking in it.
I don’t use it. But I’ve seen others in my family use it. I don’t know why, but
It just feels like he left his saliva on that glass, and It gives me Goosebumps
just looking at it. That he used be alive around us. Now he’s not.
Confession #24
In The Fault
in Our Stars novel ; Augustus Waters said, he fears oblivion. I didn’t get him.
I was like what about it? When you’re dying, you should fear death. You should
be shivering of the fear because you’d be leaving out of your body and your
soul to be headed to some unknown direction. You don’t know what happens next,
what is up there. Why would you fear oblivion?
He wanted to
leave a scar before he leaves. He wanted his individuality, he wanted people to
remember him when he’s not here. And he did accomplish that. He was loved and
remembered by Hazel Grace. He didn’t get lost in translation. Then again, it
was just a novel.
My grandpa
is dead for a year now. He’s no where to be seen. And what? Is he upset of us,
that we are gradually forgetting the
pain of losing him? Oblivion, if that’s what Augustus Waters was so afraid of.
Why? He was depressed. He was alive. He was living. Ask me, I too want to live
even after my death. But I don’t afford
that. I’m no legend. People who love me may or may not cry in my funeral. Then
after a year, they will adjust, their feelings will fade away, my death
anniversary will be remembered through milad and biryani and a munajat. They
will pray for my peace. And after decades, I’d be lost, there will be no trace
of my existence here, that I was a girl full of hopes and dreams, I once loved
someone so dearly and that I used to cry over the simplest and dumbest things
on earth. But I don’t fear my oblivion. What I fear is the after-life. Being
alone there, without my family, ammu abbu, ifty and api. I fear of uncertainty and
the loneliness I’d be facing.
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