By Nabila Shiraz
Everyone will encounter a severe loss at some point in their lives. This is an
inevitable fact. I lost my mother, the love of my life a year ago today.
I understand that I am not alone in this grief, but my god am I lonely here.
Most of us are aware of the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining,
depression and acceptance.
However, they forgot to factor in the age old South Asian daughter stage: guilt.
An emotion we are all well aware of because every decision or non-decision we have
made all our lives we have been wracked with guilt alongside of it. The decision to
not marry in my 20’s, the decision to experience life and the world on my own, many
lifestyle choices that she did not understand, and I simply did not understand her
lack of understanding me.
We did not always have an easy relationship her and I, amidst the disagreements
and brutal fights we had so much fun, laughter and heart to hearts. I shan’t bore you
with my mother woes because in the grand scheme of things they truly don’t matter
but what does matter and what I need to remember is that the basis of our
relationship was pure love.
Genuine, unadulterated and I’d run through the airport for her kind of love.
Shamim was married off as a child and then spent the remainder of her youth raising
children. Much like a lot of our mothers, life was not lived for themselves it was
mainly spent raising kids that they did not understand in a land that they did not
relate too.
The opportunities I grabbed with both hands and created for myself were not the
same she was given and for that she was angry and proud. Perhaps angry that our
opportunities and journeys were so vastly different, and proud she raised daughters
who refused to conform.
There are many realms of guilt in grief that keep me up at night. Towards my mum
where I finally felt I was getting to the stage and age where I was beginning to
understand my mum, I finally started putting in healthy boundaries between us, I
finally started putting myself first and the year I decided to do all of this she was
taken.
My goodness, the sibling guilt is also so present and real! I am unfairly angry at them
for leaving me to go about their own lives when I know they are grieving.
I carry so much guilt for not being able to be a strong sister that should be supporting
them through their grief and just wanting them here coddling me through mine.
I KNOW I am being unfair and unjust.
Heck I am writing this at 2am still thinking about her and my own wretched guilt.
Maybe 5 years from now I might look back at this differently and go a little easier on
myself but for now I want to continue to drown myself in this guilt and sadness.
Shamim felt everything to the extreme, her happiness was addictive, and her
sadness carried clouds over us all. Maybe somewhere in my soul relates to how
deeply and extremely she felt everything, and I want to honour her the same. I want
to be deeply sad and carry this guilt for as long as possible. Even if it is to the
detriment of myself, so be it.
It’s the least I can do right?
Grief changes you, physically and mentally. I have heard this said so much and not
until I stared at myself in the mirror or sat in a room full of people, did I understand
the true effect of it all. I am no longer that same person I was a year ago, my insides
have been altered forever, I have tried to find the old me within and I genuinely
cannot remember who I was before I lost my mum. And I am done searching for her
too.
Grief has taken a lot from me, and it has also given me this new ‘fuck it’ attitude.
Believe it or not, your empathy disappears. It’s like an internal switch has been
flicked and no matter how hard you try the switch refuses to budge. You no longer
care to hear about your friends’ woes that do not result in losing the most important
person in the world. It has become so easy for me to ignore messages and cancel
plans because I simply do not care to hear about your life when my whole world has
been shaken to its core.
How is it fair that the world kept spinning when I am still stuck on July 3 rd ,
2024?
For someone who had (past tense) the ability to talk the ears off anyone I
encountered, the silence has become deafening. Yet I cannot bring myself to fill it
either, it takes every effort within me to bring the Nabila I grew into back to life and I
am left drained and exhausted afterwards. The tiniest chore is daunting, going to the
office and putting on that happy mask is draining but I try.
I am able to conjure her from time to time – when the occasion permits. Some
instances are easier than others, such as seeing my beloved nieces and nephews.
The pure joy they bring my soul I could never wholly explain, and that fused spark
ignites once again.
I am not the first person this has happened to yet; this is the first time it has happened to me.
A year on from this loss, I still struggle to speak about her – there are endless nights
where I try to imagine what she thought about in her last moments and if I was in
them. The curse of a South Asian daughter is that you never truly know if what you
did was enough or if you made them happy and proud. Sure, she told her friends
about me all the time, but I wish she had told me just once.
Anger in grief is inevitable but more than anything I am angry at her. So many things
left unresolved and unsaid so now I tell my nearest and dearest how much I love
them, adore them and are proud of them as much as I can. Not a win but a lesson,
In Islam, death is not the end. It is the beginning of their next journey, and we are
told to practice sabr (patience) and pray for the departed constantly.
This is my grief speaking so respectfully never tell someone who’s just lost
their person to have sabr and this is an inevitable part of life.
You will get clocked.
My mother was not a saint, she was human, flawed and beautiful. She felt everything
to her core which although would be at the detriment to her health she refused to do
it any other way. Her legacy is heavy, yet I am grateful she gave me my 6 siblings to
be able to share this load. The biggest gift our mother gave us was each other and
for that I lie indebted to her forever.
Reading this all back, maybe in a twisted way I want to stay like this forever and
maybe I am more like her than I realised.
This deep sadness, guilt and grief is the love I carry for her and I am not ready to
give it up.
There are endless articles and videos I have watched about grief and people who
grieve – the waves of grief that can turn into tides of emotions and vulnerability. My
logical unemotional side of my brain knows eventually I will be okay, I will learn to
live with this and the pain will begin to subside as most say, ‘the first year is the
hardest.’
For all we know a year from now I will read this back and think ‘my god, take it down
a notch you depressed bitch.’ I also want to read this back in a year’s time and
remind myself how deeply I love this person and how deeply I feel their loss every
single day.
Who knew a Marvel show would give us one of the most impactful and deepest
quotes that would summarise this feeling in one line:
‘But what is grief, if not love persevering?’