Death delivered via telephone

After writing my garrulous anecdote last night, I decided to call my mom. Even though my dad calls every week (usually on a saturday or sunday), I hadn’t spoken to my mother in almost a month. I can't converse with them in the course of one phone-call since my mom lives in Pakistan while my dad is employed in Saudi Arabia. But, I hadn’t called my mother in some time not because I didn’t want to talk to her; well maybe I didn’t but that’s not because I wasn’t thinking about her. I was only trying to avoid answering the questions that I didn’t know the answers to: when are you starting work, why haven’t they sent you your work-permit, when are they going to send you your work-permit, what if…..

So, I called mom to see how she was doing, provide scant filtered information on my whereabouts, and probe the latest dramas in my sisters lives. I wonder why she never takes the initiative to call me herself. It's one of those unsolvable mysteries in our mother-son relationship. Anyway, after initial salutations, I announced that both my EAD card and H-1 Visa had been approved (something that had just happened the week before). I needed both of these documents to stay in the U.S. for at least another three years. On giving the news, I could sense her unuttered jubilance and expressed relief. But I could also sense that something was still troubling her.

And then she told me that she was really missing me, particularly since her departure from the States two months ago. I think my ‘rents had a great time when they visited me for graduation; it’s the happiest I’ve seen them together. A major reason for my mother’s joy was that she got to be with the two most important men in her life. After all, what-is-left-of-the-family hadn’t been together in three years. Since then, my mom’s departure to Pakistan, which makes her reminiscent of recent times with the family, coupled with dad’s return to Saudi Arabia has exacerbated her loneliness. And the drama in my sisters' lives (which is another long post) only make things worse since it adds to her bitterness and emptiness.

It’s hard living without a loved one who is dead. But it’s harder living without a loved one who is alive but who you can’t be with due to irrevocable circumstances. Add three precocial, rebellious kids with impetuous tempers to the picture and you have the story of my ‘rent’s life. The indelible bonds of their marriage have proved to be insufficient to keep them together. I don’t know if destiny has been responsible for their separation, but it could be. Or maybe it’s my fatalistic mind trying to justify the distance between them. One thing that I am certain of though is that my ‘rents have sacrificed their lives for their kids: everything ranging from sexual to material desires. Their unselfishness will probably weigh down on me even more as I start working and my dad retires. He is thinking about retiring, or at least of going back to Pakistan due to problem with his physical and psychological well-being. And I know that the protracted randomness of my life has played some part in his emaciation. I don’t mind supporting my ‘rents through their old age. It’s the least I can do for their immolations throughout the years. But being responsible for someone is always hard, in addition to being responsible for yourself. But then again, loving someone is always hard, in addition to loving yourself.

Speaking of death, my mom informed me that my sister’s father-in-law, who was suffering from Alzheimer, just passed away. Hearing of someone’s death, though unequivocal and irrevocable, is supposed to leave you feeling melancholy in remembrance of the one who passed away. I, on the other hand, only felt callous along with a sense of obligation to offer my condolences (I was imperiously instructed by my mother to extend a salutary phone call to either my brother-in-law or my sister’s mother-in-law). I’ll choose the later since I am not very fond of my brother-in-law and want to avoid a short awkward conversation with his pathetic wife-berating ass.

It makes me sad to realize how callous I’ve become. I should have languished the death of my uncle/distance relative (whatever you want to call him). But I didn’t or wasn't as elegiac as I could've been. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t close to the deceased (it was a distant relation after all). Or maybe it’s because my selfish insensitive heart, bottled with cupidity, only feels for things that have to do with me. I hope it’s not the latter. I'm just so caught up in my own life right now; in the routine, just like always. Regardless, may God bless the deceased man’s soul. Amen.

And something from the Holy Quran, regarding death, that is beautiful:

Then contemplate (O man!) the memorials of Allah.s Mercy!- how He gives life to the earth after its death: verily the same will give life to the men who are dead: for He has power over all things. (30:50)

Every soul shall have a taste of death: And only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life): For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception (3:185)

Every soul shall have a taste of death: and We test you by evil and by good by way of trial. To Us must ye return. (21:35)