My brother told me that my uncles were standing in the grave as the others handed down Nena's body. Bare feet in the mud and slacks rolled up to their knees, they reached for her body, wrapped in white gauze, and laid it in the wet earth.
My brother also told me that he told Nena that I loved and missed her and wished I could be there with her. My mother also did this. After the funeral, my sister read the piece that I wrote in memory of Nena to my extended family under the roof of my uncle's suburban house.
Nena had a severe stroke and was comatose for a few days before she passed away on the evening of Thursday, August 16. My aunts, uncles, and cousins were all at the hospital, and shortly after her passing each person entered the room in solitude. I imagine my brother Z holding her hand, her chiseled veins now asleep, and speaking softly with his head bowed down.
I've never seen a dead human body. I've never been to a funeral. And it was at once so very strange and somehow reassuring to know that my mourning family was compensating for my absence with speech, conjuring my bodily presence before, during, and after Nena's death.
Strange because I was not mourning in Beirut. Certainly, images of death were brewing: of Nena on her death bed, of my quaking aunt, of my family in black against a gloomy Atlanta sky peering down at a lifeless body while an anonymous sheikh spoke generically on death, heaven, and such. But I did not and am not grieving.
I am inclined to interpret this dearth of sadness as evidence of a broader sense of apathy--"Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." Sometimes, I feel compelled to espouse some sort of deontological ethical practice and force myself to mourn. But I dismiss these thoughts without fail, repulsed by the immorality of falsity.
However, that leaves me stranded. Obviously, as evidenced by the fact of this entry, I am searching--publicly--for a way to respond. Even though it leaves me uneasy, perhaps this quest in and of itself is satisfactory.
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1 comment:
allah yir7amha.
there's something about dead bodies that makes me wish i was there as they were dying but when i am there for the transition to death all i can think of is my own mortality and then to rationalize the selfish thoughts i -the atheist- recite "laa 2illah illallah" and convince myself this is the end of suffering. i always walk away mourning but more often than not i am "mourning" the fact that i one day will be gone like them...
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