Wednesday, July 6, 2016. I must have driven for 5 seconds before an officer pulled me over for not fully stopping at a stop sign. As she took my license and registration, it forced me to finally realize why this was no ordinary day and why the thought of a ticket was the last thing on my mind. Today marked the celebration of Eid al Fitr, but I was choosing not to celebrate it with anyone because there was something else I really wanted to do: today would mark the first time I was going to visit my dad’s grave ever since we buried him sixteen years ago. As the officer sat in her car, all I could think about was why it had taken me so long to do this. In part, I knew; some force drove me to forgo celebrating Eid and attend to something I felt long forgotten in my life.
I used to always pride myself in being authentic and pragmatic as I could be, so when asked by a younger cousin one day, “do you ever miss your dad?” I responded by saying, “you know what, not really”. She became a bit startled but I also think she misunderstood what I meant to say. For all my life I thought missing a person depended on the degree with which one got to know them. In my mind, it seemed simple – the more we got to learn about someone and the stronger our relationship grew with them, the more we would miss them. I was the youngest child and the only boy in a household of five sisters so lacking a male figure was significant. I met my dad at the of seven and lost him before I turned twelve. In the years that followed, I thought I would barely miss him. Yet that day in 2016, I felt more determined than ever to visit his grave. The man I barely got to know was now someone I could not get off my mind.
~~~
While the officer sat in her car, I tried not thinking about why she was doing so and simply focused all my attention towards the street and observed people walking, cars driving, and just about anything I could set my eyes on. I suppose I had built up a habit of narrowing my concentration on something my mind could observe – it helped me disassociate with any heightened feelings of stress and keep busy. The first time I vividly remember doing this was also the day dad was pronounced dead.
I had my back turned towards the bed, in which he now lay deceased, as I looked outside from the 18th floor of Mount Sinai Hospital. I could hear those in the room behind me frantically weeping, others softly shedding tears, and some just silently standing. I would turn around every now and then, observe the room, and then turn my back towards them to look outside again – focused only on what I could see. I chose not to look behind me but did not know why. At the time all I knew was that I just could not help but keep observing the cars moving outside – some large, some small, some black, some silver, some old, some new – they were all moving, sometimes pausing, but then moving again. At no point did I grow fatigued but soon it was time to go. My sister, Ayesha, asked me to come and say farewell to dad for the final time – I was neither keen nor eager to do so. Walking up to the bed, I took a long stare – dad’s eyes were shut, which at first felt strange since I had never tried to wake him up from sleep. I leaned my body in to hug him and as soon as I did, I immediately began to weep. This was the first time I had cried and, upon the room quieting down, it also seemed to be the loudest there. His body felt so cold and as if a soul now no longer existed – it just didn’t feel like dad anymore. My sister then took hold of me, with her arm around my head, and walked me outside the ICU into the corridor as I continued weeping. A family in the hallway saw me and were even kind enough to move towards the opposite ends of the hall allowing me to walk through. Ayesha brought me to the visitor’s area where she told me to sit, offered a few words of counsel and left soon after telling me she would be back.
“Back” – a word I had grown accustomed to hearing.
I had always been told dad was coming back too – for the first five years in Pakistan and for about two more years when we arrived in Canada. Since long-distance phone calls were a bit too expensive, my mom used to ask us to record our messages on a tape recorder so she could send it to dad. I didn't know where Canada was but I knew it was far away and that it required an airplane to reach. Even though I had never seen him for the first five years of my life, I knew dad would be coming back. When the tape recorder turned on, I felt it was my duty to speak about everything I wanted him to send. “It’s recording, it’s recording, say something”, my sister would ask, “umm, I want a plane. I want a flying plane”. ‘You always ask for that’ my sister added. I paused and then continued, “I want a car, but one that flies”.
I don’t know why I always asked for something that could fly – be it a plane or even a flying car. Perhaps somewhere inside my five year old mind I thought I could use these toys to get to him so I wouldn't have to hear the words “he’s coming back” anymore. As I sat in the visitor’s area of the hospital, still absorbing the hug I wished I could take back, I was sure of one thing – dad was not coming back. Not this time.
~~~
I told myself in the car it was going to be fine – after all, the officer would see I had no prior tickets. Telling yourself that things are going to be fine doesn’t usually mean they will be, but it does help create a sense of calm in the moment. I could see the officer walking towards me. She told me I would only be getting a warning ticket, letting me know that the residents of the area complained no one was observing this specific stop sign. I thanked her saying it was very kind of her at which she started laughing. It was a small pleasant moment and one I needed at the time.
There weren’t too many pleasant moments with dad but perhaps the happiest I ever saw him was when he finally arrived in Toronto to reunite with us. “He’s here, he’s here” my sister shouted. Before I could realize what was going on, dad was hugging her with a smile I had never seen from a man. He ended up embracing both of us in his arms at the airport and held us close the entire drive home. It felt strange to me that a man I had never seen was now holding me so close but I could see genuine happiness brimming from his face. My uncle and his wife both asked him to sit in the front but he insisted he wanted to be in the back with his two kids. This is perhaps the fondest memory I have of him, but not every day going forward was going to be as pleasant as this. It never occurred to dad that not being with your children for seven years would mean that he now needed to build stronger relationships with us. The downside of living without his family for so long would show. It got to a point where I would disclose to friends that I didn’t like my dad – he would yell, scream and often times hit me. At the time I felt I was better off without him but then came an odd discovery. I found out almost all my friends, also immigrants, had very similar dads. We confided with each other, often in humour, in the different ways our dads would hit us even coming up with tactics like hiding under a duvet when a beating was coming so that it wouldn’t hurt as much. As time passed, the feelings of anger towards him went away. It was still hard for me to confide in him but, as dad spent more time with us, he began to display more of a calm demeanor and became easier to approach.
In the summer of 2000, my mom received terrible news from Pakistan – her older sister, Rafiya, passed away. My dad purchased her a plane ticket so she could fly back home but only about a month later his health started to worsen. While mom was in Pakistan, we found out that dad had cancer and the doctors moved fast to build medical options for him in the next months. At the time I didn’t know anything about dad’s illness or how it was important not to annoy mom since she was also grieving her sister’s loss. When mom did arrive, there was no panic in the home. We all seemed to have a belief that everything was going to be fine. It turned out that this would not be the case, but throughout the entire duration of dad’s illness the environment at home never felt chaotic. In fact, everything was relatively calm up until the day he died. That day was in late August of 2000. My uncle arrived at the door, trying to hold back tears whilst simultaneously brushing it off with a grin. He seemed in a hurry and my mother picked up on his strange behavior. She prompted him why he was in a rush at which point he broke down and revealed that dad had passed away.
Instantly I heard the screams of my sisters. My mom, a woman always composed, fell down on the floor telling everyone to get away from her. I went to hug her as she pushed me away only repeating "get away from me, get away". I did back away, the only person in the home not crying, and perhaps the only person also not realizing what just happened. All those weeks prior, which felt relatively calm, now seemed as if they didn’t exist. Was this the time to remind ourselves again that everything was going to be fine? I didn’t know. All I could do was observe my mom, my sisters, my uncles, my aunts and just about everyone else crying. And all I could do was just helplessly watch.
The officer was gone. I started the car again and headed out.
~~~
On the drive to the graveyard, I decided to make a stop at a Masjid and offer Dhuhr prayer. The area, primarily a Muslim one, was very empty – everyone was somewhere celebrating Eid. I entered the mosque alone and prayed alone. “Alone” – a theme I became fairly accustomed to, yet never comfortable with, from childhood. As the British psychiatrist D.W Winnicott said, two things can go wrong in childhood: when things happen when they shouldn’t and when things don’t happen when they should. Perhaps every child has this complaint but when you lose your dad and have no brothers or uncles to speak to – much less rely on – then a lot of things which should happen don’t end up happening at all.
A lot of things could have happened if dad stayed alive but it was his presence I needed the most. This manifested itself regularly in extended family dinners which were usually segregated with women and men sitting separately. This meant I needed to enter the men’s area by myself whilst my sisters entered with mom. Once inside, it didn’t get easier. I would see men much older than me who I couldn't interact with, so I would try to join the boys my age – but that had its own challenges. As a young child I had become an easy target for bullying. During one dinner, when I joined the boys and eventually became the subject of jokes, all I did was stay. I couldn’t go to my mom and sisters since they were in the women’s section and I didn’t know who to speak to among the male adults. Perhaps my dad wouldn’t have helped. Maybe he would've been the kind of dad to ignore me but, now that I think about it, at least I could have gone to sit beside him. At least his presence would have been an option and probably a better one than those kids. When they grew bored of making fun of me, they walked out, leaving me alone in the room. This was someone else’s home so it felt strange being alone there. All I could do was follow them to the balcony even though that meant I would have to hear more of the same. Eventually they would feel bad, sometimes say sorry and turn to other things. If anything, they provided me a place where I didn’t have to be alone, something I would do anything to avoid.
Sitting in the Masjid alone, and troubled by memories like these from my past, I had to remind myself that no one was bullying me anymore and I certainly didn’t need to stay in any environment like that as a grown adult. I stood up after prayer. It was getting late and I needed to head to the cemetery soon.
~~~
I finally arrived at dad’s grave but was unable to find which one belonged to him since we chose not to get a tombstone. It reminded me of how easily we forget those who die. The sun was scorching down without a cloud in the sky as I tried searching some of the unmarked graves using the unit number given by the memorial. I didn’t mind the search since I could not think of what to say when I found him. I would sit down and get up continuously until I finally made my way back to some shade so I could figure out what to say.
For as long as I can remember, I never sat down thinking about how I needed dad. In a way this was good. I didn’t allow myself to feel limited in anything I did but it also made me overlook how limitations in life can exist.
The night of his death, we sat at a Masjid. Funeral preparations were happening and I was sitting in the men’s section unable to be with my sisters. Other than to give condolences, none of the male adults came to speak with me. At one point, I realized I had been sitting by myself for what seemed like hours. I would come to regularly expect this as the years passed and little did anyone realize how different an experience it would be for me compared to them. As the years passed, and I arrived in my mid-teens, I grew exceedingly tired of the expectations everyone was placing upon me. I was desperately in search of understanding, validation or just a conversation with a compassionate figure. Perhaps it was not just the absence of dad but also an absence of space for a lost, confused Muslim kid.
What I also didn’t understand at the time was that my sisters and mother were also spending the time recuperating without dad. Back home, the most common insult my mother would hear, a woman with five girls and her husband abroad, was: "Where is this husband of yours? Who is going to speak for you? You have five daughters. What are they going to do?". Sometimes my mom was also referred to as ‘the lady with five girls’. It was as if when Allah hated someone, He would provide them girls.
Today, if I simplistically look at it, I could blame dad’s absence. His presence would have saved my sisters and mother from everything they had to tolerate in Pakistan. His presence could have also saved me from the remarks those kids would make at me during dinners. His presence could have saved us all from that.
I walked away from the shade towards his grave. I wasn’t mad at him or at Allah. I had long accepted all of this in my life; I realized there was nothing I really wanted to say to dad, I just wanted to be near his presence – if that even existed. I walked closer to where I thought his grave was, silently prayed and allowed myself to let out a few tears in relief.
~~~
I started to head out when I got a call from my sister. The entire family was at a restaurant having dinner and she asked me to join. They were all also wondering where I had been all day.
Part of me resented my past but over the years I began to understand my family’s experiences of losing dad too. Today I can attest to the depth of sincerity all my siblings have and the genuine love and concern they also share. Even though our schedules don’t permit us to spend much time together, realizing how much I actually missed dad without knowing him did help me appreciate the family I still have. I grieved dad’s loss not because of all the memories we built together, but the implications his absence would entail. His loss meant a loss of social connections, a loss of guidance, and most of all a loss of his presence. I knew all day that I could call any of my sisters and speak to them. Their presence still existed and that thought in itself was cathartic.
I started the car again and told her I was on my way. Arriving at the restaurant, I was greeted by my nieces and nephews who came running up to hug me saying, “mamo’s here, mamo’s here”. They have many aunts but only one mamo (an uncle from the mother’s side). “Where were you? How was your day” my sister asked. “I think I just want to eat” I replied jokingly. I had spent the entire day by himself and was eager to hear other voices now.
I could see my family around me, and others coming into and out of the restaurant but I wasn’t cautiously observing any of it like I had been earlier in the day – there was a sense of relief settling in me that evening. Perhaps, if I didn’t know already, that day reaffirmed to me that missing someone does not just come from how much time we spend with them or the memories we build. Missing someone can also come from the potential memories which could have been built; the potential stories which could have been shared; the potential love which could have been experienced. With the sounds of my nieces and nephews in the background, and the chatter from my sisters and mother, I needed to remind myself that those who are gone won’t be coming back and any potential experience lost is one which never took place.
Learning this was important, not because it helped me feel better but because it helped me understand the need to release dad. In time I would need to release the potential figure of what I wished dad could have been for me and what my life would have been like with him. I had to do this. He was gone a long time ago.
