Yesterday I called my dad while I was still in bed, before getting into town and discovering Edinburgh on foot. "I have a bad news for you" he said, making sure that my conference presentation was over and that I had already submitted my exams. My heart started beating fast. I was silent. "Your granny passed away two days ago," he said. I burst into tears. "We didn't want to tell you to distract you from what you were doing." For a moment, I thought how considerate of them but how distant I was from them.
Granny was my great grandmother, a selfless beautiful woman inside and out, who had stayed in home for almost twenty years, because she had problem walking, yet this imposed confinement did not make her grumpy nor did it create any sort of complex in her character. She lost her husband at a young age and never remarried. She was forever in love with him and because she was religious, she had one wish only, and that was to reunite with her husband "if I deserve to go to heaven" as she said.
When she talked about him, tears ran down her eyes. She lived with her only daughter and was the light and joy of the house. She thought about everyone and her arms was a refuge for all of us, her great grandchildren, her grandchildren and her daughter. I never heard her lie or give an unfair comment about anyone. She was an honest storyteller whom I always trusted without a shadow of a doubt . Whenever we were leaving the house, she said "I entrust you to the hands of God." I could never find an equivalent in my own words but I could feel the beauty of her words in the mind of a believer. It was the best kind of farewell. One could tell someone, "I entrust you to the powers of the good," or "I wish you safety on your journey," or "I wish you a safe journey" or… I don't know.
My granny was going to hospital back and forth in the past few months. Every time I called my uncle, I was hoping not to hear a bad news. She was suffering from heart, lung and kidney malaise. My aunt told me that when they were after the 13th day of the year (in Iran, the new year's holiday ends after the 13th day), she had told her: "now that the 13th is over, I can die; I won't ruin your new year's holiday." I sobbed when she said this. How thoughtful can one be to even think about the time of her death? My auntie also told me that the night before she died, she had dreamed of her husband telling her "you have suffered enough; it's time you come to me." She died peacefully the next day. Now that I'm writing these words on a train and watching the scenery passing the train by, I'm thinking about our journey in life, how life passes us by with all its good and bad memories, with the pains and laughters. We know about death, it's been there for zillions of years and yet we feel so weak and helpless when we face it, when one of our closest ones dies.
I was thinking about the first time I faced the death of a person whom I had seen in real, my father's uncle. It was weird and uncanny. I did not comprehend that he did not exist anymore, that he was simply not there and was not going to be there. I went around the house and came back and wanted to call him but kept silent when I realized that he was no longer sitting on his armchair.
It will still be the same when I visit my granny's house. I will still be searching for her in that house, on that chair near the stove where she cooked the most delicious foods for us, on the floor where she sat and knitted pullover and scarves, and on the leather chair she sat where I combed and plait her beautiful all white hair. I never wanted to think that I wouldn't see her when I said goodbye to her last year before leaving Iran. My granny, my sweet, kind granny, that house should feel empty without you. I don't know how I'm gonna enter it.
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