I WAS THIRTEEN when my father died. I did not tell any of the boys in my class. I did not want anyone to pity me. I wore a black kurta-pajama to the funeral. The air smelled strongly of fresh dirt. My mother could not come to the graveyard. It was not allowed. I alone was the representative and I buried him. Every man my father had known was there and each of them placed a heavy hand on my forehead and let it rest for a moment. At first I was confused. It felt nice. How did everyone know to do the same? Then I remembered what the Prophet, peace be upon Him, had said about orphans: be kind to them, feed them, place a hand on their forehead. They were getting sawaab. And I was the one who had become an orphan.
The dirt was dark and very moist. It had rained. Nearby there was a sanctuary structure where dark birds crowded the roof. I saw my father, wrapped in the white cloth, lowered into the grave. His face was very waxy and that bothered me. I tried to communicate with him in my mind. I am here, Baba—you are not going alone to the other world. We are sending you off. The moulana had told me what to pray in Arabic but I forgot the verses. I spoke to my father in Urdu instead. My father, whom I had not known very well. He preferred gulab jamun to halwa. He insisted on paying a set price for rickshaws and if the rickshaw driver did not match it he walked on, looking for another. He was a man of principle. He was very punctual. He liked watches very much. He was proud of the one he wore every day, told me often why it had been given to him. He was studious and competitive. He had a temper. I had been terrified of him. Once, when I was a young boy, I had taken a magazine from the store. When he saw I had walked out holding it he struck me on my face so hard my ears began to ring. I did not remember if I had taken it on purpose or if I had forgotten I was holding it, but when I touched my hand against my burning face, I hoped I had taken it intentionally, so that I would be deserving of the punishment and saved from hurt that my father had assumed the worst in me.
I lifted the dark dirt. It fell between my fingers. I formed my hand into a fist and more dirt fell, but the dirt that remained clumped together into a ball. I dropped it into the grave. It landed with a thud. The dirt came apart against the white cloth my father was wrapped in. In America, years later, I volunteered for our mosque in different ways. I dropped off and picked up moulanas at the airport. We often sponsored iftaars during Ramadan. Another duty of mine was performing ghusl on people who had passed away. The first time I did this I was thirteen. I had never seen my father’s body unclothed before. I was a child before he died but after, I was a man; I began to pray and keep my fasts, and on the day my father was to be buried the other men who did his ghusl had ushered me into the room and showed me the steps. In America, every time someone wanted a Muslim burial but did not have enough family members to perform the ghusl, I would go in and help with a handful of other men. Only men could wash men and women could wash women. Sometimes, before we stepped into the room, we would learn about the life of the body we were about to wash. Their occupation, how they died, who they had left behind. Other times, we knew them, they were members of the community, and I cataloged every memory I had with them and shared some aloud with the other men. But in the room, while we washed, when the body lay on the table before us, we were completely silent. We only spoke if it was absolutely necessary and if it related to the task at hand. The body was vulnerable and I felt for the person, who had not known, before death, it would be strangers who prepared him to rest finally in the earth. I concentrated on being very gentle as I washed the arms, the legs, each finger and each toe. Now I know I will be like those bodies that are washed without their sons present. Hadia and Huda and Layla will stay home on the day I am to be buried, or they will come to the cemetery and stand far enough away that they can only see my body lowered into the ground through the gaps of men present who surround the grave. And who will be the one to step forward first, grab a fistful of dirt, and before they have dropped it into my grave say to me, you are not going alone to the other world, we are here, I am here, sending you off.
* * *
THERE ARE SIGHTS in life I will never tire of seeing. Layla tying her hair up in a bun before beginning a task, that fluid motion of her wrist and fingers working to gather all her hair and contain it. Huda when she was three and learned how to whistle, how we asked her to entertain us and any guest who came to our home. My grandchildren calling me Nana. Tahira tugging at the edge of my kurta to get my attention. That moment I first step out and look up at the sky. Layla pointing out the leaves when the wind makes them all wave at once. Death, which awaits everyone, seems to be standing beyond a corner I can’t see but feel I will turn to face any moment. Half of my life is here—my wife, my children, my grandchildren. Half has already made it to the other side—my parents, so long ago that for most of my life I did not think of death as a region to ward off, but as the place where they were waiting for me. So I am not afraid. But when I think of these inexhaustible sights something pinches in me: To never see Layla twist her hair into a tight bun. To never look up and be made a child again by the wonder of the moon. To never hear the thud of the basketball against the pavement, the squeak of sneakers, and stop what I was doing, widen the space of the blinds just enough to see you lift your arm in the pause before flight, bend your knees, your face full of such concentration that I couldn’t help but wait until you shoot, score, smile to yourself wide and pure.
* * *
TAHIRA AND ABBAS are here for the weekend. Hadia and Tariq have driven up to Lake Tahoe. Layla is happy to be with them and I am thrilled she has something to focus on other than me. She has made a list of activities: a children’s author is coming to the library, she has rented The Lion King, apples are stocked for our walk to the horses. They have gone out to Layla’s flower garden, and from the window I can hear her voice and I know where Huda got her skills as a teacher, how calmly Layla explains the name of each flower, the way to cut the stem with the garden scissors, how she would think to arrange them.
Nine years married. Nine years ago the hall filled with everyone we knew, and you also came, coaxed into the suit your mother had bought you just in case, and I was at every moment thanking God for the gifts He was bestowing upon us, my daughter soon to be married, my family intact. I watched you for any sign of what we had feared when you left, but you seemed fine: your hands shook a bit and you smoked often but that was all right. Don’t go to him, Layla had said, and I did not. Had I been a saint, had I done nothing to hurt you over the years, I would tell her how upset with her I still am—but I have so much guilt to bear and she has the grace to never remind me of it, so I do not.
“I want Nana to cook.” Tahira teases me as dinner approaches.