It’s the Small Things | Love and Loss

Death has always fascinated me. I believe that the otherwise absurdity of life is given meaning through death. A life spent with endless, often incomplete questions about existence, purpose and survival may find its answers in a single final moment. Death is a social event, but the act of dying is personal and intimate. 

I remember many nights when I saw my grandmother inching close to death, as a patient of Dementia and Alzheimer`s. Her recurring night murmurs were filled with names of her loved ones whom she had lost in her younger days, whom I never met or saw; they exist in my memories through her stories and narratives. There were also nights when she either helplessly remembered God, sometimes in the most rebellious ways. I still remember the night before her final day when I put a blanket on her; her eyes were somewhere else. It was that moment that I sensed the distance between the act of dying and her death was shrinking.

The next morning, I woke up to a howling sound. I ran to see her. She had had an attack in the morning. By then I had spent many nights waking up, watching over her, and checking if her blanket was still in place, checking for her breath, searching for her life. That day too I did the same.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

She died around four in the evening. Life had finally released her, and she embraced death in the most quiet and gentle way – as if a silent wind had carried her away. Usual rituals, customs and religious humming followed; red chairs and white sheets arrived to fill the space left behind by the deceased’s life. I was numb, but a single thought kept crossing my mind and it finally made sense to me: we can only love people, we cannot save them.

My grandmother had spent her entire life loving and caring for me. Even in the final moments, her eyes rested on my face before they closed forever. I still do not know whether in the end she recognised me anymore, but for both of us, her love was always enough:pure, unconditional and transcendental. 

The next morning we began her final rites. In this world, there are some kinds of love that we cannot fully return. But I still felt the need to remember her with one final act: I chose to walk with her Janazah. 

In Muslim communities, I must mention, women are not allowed to go to the graveyard or to accompany the deceased. But I had made my decision.

So I ran towards the gate to stop them from taking her away. My father saw, I told him I wanted to go and he agreed without a word or question. I held his hand and we walked. People were looking at me with suspicion but I walked, my eyes fixed only on her Janazah covered with red roses.

I even kept some fallen rose petals from that day.

I still do not know why I took that decision. But walking with her on her last and final journey was my small act of love to remember her then and ever after.

Ramsha Aveen is a PhD scholar of Sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia.

We’ve grown up hearing that “it’s the small things” that matter. That’s true, of course, but it’s also not – there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn’t take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.

And now we’re looking to you to also think about the small things – the joy that comes from a strangers’ kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.

Read the series here.

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