Non-fiction
On Death and Loss: Remembering My Mother
One of my earliest memories of the mystery of death is my recollection of a story we read in elementary school. In the story, we learned about the reaction of Siddhartha, who later came to be known as Gautam Buddha, when he had a face-to-face encounter with death in Kapilavastu. His father, King Sudhhodono, did not want his son to have to deal with death or human suffering. But Gautam witnessed both, in spite of the king and his courtiers. Since the time I read the story, it has stayed with me, and the manner in which Siddhartha went about on his now legendary quest for the meaning of life and death has always fascinated me. Later I realized that, amongst my friends, like many others growing up in the Indian sub-continent in the 60's and 70's, we had a shared feeling that real search for truth begins only after you witness death or experience love. My mother passed away last year. I was with her when she breathed her last on the 29th of September at Suhrawardy Hospital, exactly five days after I reached Dhaka with a mission: to be with her and to take care of her during her illness and hopefully, recovery. I was planning to stay on until she had fully recovered or my brother Ratan, who lives in St. Louis, USA, took over and I could pass the baton on to a trusted soul-mate. Since her death, I too have tried to come to terms with my loss. The loss of a loved one is sometimes hard on any individual, and my mother's absence will be with me for some time to come. I don't say it because I have the power of prediction, but because I know that's how I am wired, as they say, or because I have heard that healing and coping takes time when one is older. But the loss of one's loved ones are meant to hurt no matter when it happens. For example, my cousin Bablu died thirty three years ago, and it feels like only the other day that I saw him ride away on his motorbike from our house in Minto Road and meet into the fateful accident in front of Dhaka Medical College. My eldest brother, Shadani, died, again in a road accident, twenty one years ago in Zimbabwe, and I still refer to him as if he were still part of my close inner circle, my band of brothers. I often find myself saying at the dinner table, "Bhaiya and I used to do it this way", and then as an afterthought paraphrase it with the clause, "when he was alive". When someone dies, you move on, as is the practice in my adopted country, and as I hear constantly being said to me. I came back to Boston a week after I buried my mother, and went back to work the morning after I returned. My wife, who was in the USA holding the fort, so to speak, in my absence had received calls of sympathy from friends and relatives. Her colleagues at Bridgewater State College had given a tree to plant in my mother's memory. I see it every morning and every time I step out of the house--I admire it for growing taller every day and thriving even in the harsh New England winter. My mother would have been very happy to know, if she were alive, that we planted a tree in front of my house and named it after her, Sarah. She liked to walk in my yard on the rare occasions when she was visiting me. She did not like traveling to the USA--she dreaded the long journey and the excruciatingly painful layover at London airport. The only two times she traveled to Boston were once after Shadani died, and later when my brother Ratan got married in the USA. When she traveled the first time, right after she had buried her eldest son, my cousin Naheed was traveling with her, and Naheed took very good care of my mother. However, I am not sure whether my mother was in a condition to complain about the strains of traveling, or about anything else on the road overwhelmed as she was with the pain of her loss. My brother Salek, who was then studying to be a doctor, told me that they had given her medications to alleviate the pain. On the next trip a few years later, Salek was traveling with her and that must have eased the anxiety of traveling and the accompanying jet lag. My mother and I endured the pain of losing Shadani together. I can't imagine what it was like to see your eldest son come back in a coffin, because nothing in life prepares you for that experience. I was not prepared for his loss either, and I was younger, in my thirties. And I sometimes wonder whether I have accepted his death and moved on or I am still in denial. But, outwardly, I have moved on, and I steel myself whenever I am in pain over my losses as I resolve again that I will move on. The pain comes and goes and I sometimes think that that's how it's going to be. As my son often says to me when faced with a difficult situation or a tough choice: "You deal with it." The pain of losing my mother is most acute when I am by myself, driving to work, or in bed early in the morning or late at night. She and I had a common interest--our fascination with music in its many forms. She was a big Rabindra Sangeet fan, and whenever I hear some of her favorite songs, I can almost see her sitting on her bed in rapt attention nodding and following every word of the song. My brother, Swapan, knew of the therapeutic effect of music on my mother early on, and whenever she was restless or otherwise disturbed, he'd turn on the old tape recorder with the Tagore songs. The magical impact was instantaneous--she'd drop everything else, stop dead on her tracks, and just take in the music. It is as though she's been hypnotized. In her last days, my mother was living by herself, as all her sons were on all parts of the globe doing their job. Bacchu was in a remote tea garden of Sylhet, Salek was in Saudi Arabia, and the three of us in North America. Her lonely days in her apartment were spent doing what she's done all her life, taking care of business and her caregivers. But even in her lonely existence, she never asked any of us to go back to live with her. She knew we had chosen the life of refugees for a reason. When my brother died in Zimbabwe, she learned the skills to console herself and others. She would say, "Shadani died a Shaheed, because he was on his way to work!" as her own Khalamma had told her. She knew work was like going to war, and akin to prayer, and she never wanted us to walk away from the battle field. My mother was with me when she died. My Kachi khala said, "Boro Apa was waiting for you to come back before she went. She wanted to say good bye to you." It all made sense to me now. I just could not understand why my mother died only five days after I arrived, why she could not have a few more days. Well, she waited to say goodbye. However, I also sometimes wonder if she had left because of abhiman. Was she piqued that we took her to the hospital which she always dreaded? Or did she leave because she wanted to leave when she was in a happy surrounding with me, Sadat, and his son to keep her company? My mother's youngest sister, my Kachi khala wrote a piece titled "Jey bone choley gelo" in a Bengali daily. She laments the fact that she was not able to visit her Boro Apa as often during the latter's illness because of many hassles that Dhaka-ites live with: traffic congestion, heat, the daily grind, etc. She writes, "Boro Apa left us because she was piqued ('abhimani') with us." Yesterday, I was driving to work along a very scenic road, which winds through the town of Milton in the outskirts of Boston. This road, which cuts through a beautiful undulating landscape just before we enter Boston, is one of my favorite and riding along this stretch always makes me feel happy. I was listening on my mp3 player, and the song that came along was Tagore's 'Potho choley jetey jetey, kotha kone khaney tomar porosho lagey.' (As I was traveling along, I wonder when and where I will feel your touch in my heart.) I felt a presence, as though I was enjoying the beautiful melody with my mother, as she rode along with me, absorbed in the beauty of it all. Abdullah Shibli is a consultant in Boston.
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