On a somewhat daily basis, I feel the urge to write, to let my anger, my love, my uncontainable flames of emotions catch that paper in fire and burn the pain away or carve the words so hard in a stone, you can’t notice the difference in whether it was natural or not. But I’ve never felt like recently, writing let it out, to communicate the pain with words and address the agony of one’s mind.It was the 4th of September 2023. Cozied up on that blue couch at my Dean’s office where I had worked for two years, I get the call. The call that I had been anticipating for nearly 10 years. I refused to pick up. My phone rings again. I act as if I am drowning in the matrix unaware of my surroundings. It rings again, I felt the reapers hoe on my neck shaving every inch of hair making my beard. I pick up and start sobbing. Mom hasn’t said anything yet; 5 seconds of silence filled 70 years of life, of love, of history. My grandma had passed. Reality had shattered, now, we are truly in the matrix. I hang up.
I had lost people before, much younger, much harder. I had even washed and helped bury my paternal grandfather. But this pain, no amount of words can describe it. A single call, flipped my life upside down and made me enter into a new chapter of my adulthood. One without my grandmother. I could no longer smell her hair as I rested my chin on her head while she washed the dishes. I could no longer taste her food or smell her coffee at six in the morning filling every corner of the house. My uncle could no longer complain about her brooming and cleaning waking him up on a crisp Sunday morning. I blame every inch of my being and everyone else's every time I remember her calling and me having to end the call in under a minute or even worse, not picking up at all. My grandma is gone, the last part of my grandpa who had left a decade earlier. They left behind their unbelievable love story — making every other love story seem like a child’s work. They left behind a presences of love no two humans can replicate. The world is emptier, far more echoing, loud in the noise made by their vacuum.
I moved to the conference room where I could cry more freely and I could only feel the heat of my tears rip through my cheeks. My thick beard that my grandma had always displayed proudly to every friend she had suddenly felt thinner than ever. I was 15 again.
…
I saw myself sitting on her couch while she was making stuffed zucchini. Some god forsaken Turkish series was playing on the TV and the boiler was turned on awaiting my uncles return from work. Um Ali, the buildings manager, janitor, secret keeper, and soul, knocked on my grandma’s door. The two grandmas exchanged a few words and smiled at me with so much love, the holy spirit was made aware.
Grandma closes the door and her landline rang. To me that was grandma, a hub for every one that knew her. Her phone never stopped ringing no matter how much my uncle complained. Her home was never empty no matter how alone she was after grandpa’s passing. Grandma, that sweet little old lady, had managed to take her spirit and paint every corner of the house with it.
…
Later that day, I was on my way to Sofia. Unable to explain what had just happened to a single other soul. My body and mind were at peace, going through the day like nothing had happened. My soul, well I didn’t feel a soul to say, it was emptied or in pain or feeling like it’s pivoting through circles of hell. I simply had no soul.
It’s over a year now, I am beginning to feel again.
Conclusion
Mohamad Hachem