Chapter 3: A New Beginning

Seems as though it’s going to take quite a while for me to get used to this. Even now, as I write these words, I still feel pain. I’m starting to think that it was bad idea writing about all this; it’s really emotionally draining, and my poor computer has had to bath in my tears while I recall as much as I could to let it all out here. But for some reason, out of all my family members and my Nan’s surviving friends, I feel as though I’m the only one who is finding it hard to get used to her not being around anymore. I talked to my mum about that, but she said that that might be because they’re all adults, while I’m not. I don’t see that as an excuse though, it’s not long to go until I turn sixteen, so shouldn’t I be mature already? I’m such a baby. It makes me worry though; if I can’t even pull myself together when I have lost my Nan, how would I cope if someone else close to me passes away too someday? I’ve lost relatives before, but somehow this feels different.

But I have given it a little more thought than that. Perhaps it could be more than just my age, maybe it could be because she’s played a massive part in my life since I was born, and now that she’s gone, I still can’t seem to imagine my life without her. When I was younger, my parents wanted to foster a child, but didn’t succeed in doing this when my dad became ill, and even now, several years later, the doctors still don’t know what’s wrong with him. Soon after that, while I was still being home educated, my Nan began to deteriorate even more noticeably than before.

It wasn’t so long before my Nan had died, when I had another nightmare. The thing about me is, often I have dreams, that feel so real, and in a certain amount of time, the dream comes true. So far those dreams have mostly been bad ones, and most of them, I could not do much to prevent it from occurring. This one however, felt different to the others. It felt real, but not all of it came true, like it was just to tell me something, but not something that could be helped very much that I would know how it happened. I was in a dark, murky graveyard, and I had a red rose in my hands, clasped to my chest. My older sister, Naomi, standing beside me, and singing at the top of her voice, and at the nearest gravestone, was the name: Doris Gwendoline K. My Nan.

Two weeks pass, and soon comes the day of the funeral. Unlike everyone else, I choose to wear black all over, even to the littlest detail. Black laced top, black t-shirt, black trousers, black socks, a black scarf, black coat, black converses, black makeup, and even black jewelry. This time, I have another idea to try as an attempt to distract me from the emotional pain that I know I would have to experience again. I put on a clip on lip ring: something which begins to hurt after a while of wearing it, so I think that maybe if I put it on at the right time, once it comes to the hardest parts of the funeral, it may distract me a little and drain out a bit of the sorrow.

Since my Nan was Christian and I a Muslim, I had never been to a funeral of that faith before; in fact I hadn’t been to a single funeral my whole life. The funeral was so heartfelt, and the chapel was so beautiful. Just like in the dream, my sister sang, and it wasn’t like I had told anyone about the dream before the funeral.

After a speech by my dad, it is Naomi’s turn to sing, like she usually did, since she’s an opera singer. She chose to sing something in German, with her friend Matthew playing the organ.

“Abend ist's, die Sonne ist verschwunden,

Und der Mond strahlt Silberglanz;

 So entfliehn des Lebens schönste Stunden,

 Fliehn vorüber wie im Tanz.

 Bald entflieht des Lebens bunte Szene,

 Und der Vorhang rollt herab;

 Aus ist unser Spiel, des Freundes Träne

 Fließet schon auf unser Grab.

 Bald vielleicht (mir weht, wie Westwind leise,

 Eine stille Ahnung zu),

 Schließ ich dieses Lebens Pilgerreise,

 Fliege in das Land der Ruh.

 Werdet ihr dann an meinem Grabe weinen,

 Trauernd meine Asche sehn,

 Dann, o Freunde, will ich euch erscheinen

 Und will himmelauf euch wehn.

 Schenk auch du ein Tränchen mir

 Und pflücke mir ein Veilchen auf mein Grab,

 Und mit deinem seelenvollen Blicke

 Sieh dann sanft auf mich herab.

 Weih mir eine Träne, und ach! schäme

 dich nur nicht, sie mir zu weihn;

 Oh, sie wird in meinem Diademe

 Dann die schönste Perle sein!”

I had no idea what the song meant, but it was so beautiful, and in that particular chapel, it sounded amazing. She performed it with such elegance and aptitude, and yet her grandmother had just passed away. I frown at the poem I wrote the day before. Could I ever be as talented as her? 

She and Matthew return to their seats beside me. My turn now. 

I walk up to the front, where my dad stands, and I use the podium to stand my unstable piece of paper to read my poem off of.

I stand up straight, my red rose clamped in my trembling hands, and read. For once in my life, I am not scared to get up in front of an audience and speak. This day is all about my Nan, not the people looking at me while I recite my poem, ‘All is not lost’.

Normally, I have to raise my voice when I speak to even a few people; I’m not the loudest of people, but in this chapel, my voice amplifies. I take a deep breath, and begin. 

“A single red rose:

it lived such a long life.”

I held it at my stomach, pulling it up slowly.

“It grew so tall, and throughout the years it strengthened, but as it grew stronger and stronger, it also weakened in some ways.”

My rose descends, too, in my ice cold hands, but as the rose in the poem weakened, mine lowered.

“Nothing lasts forever,

no matter how beautiful it is,

no matter how much it would be missed.

Someday it would have to die.”

As I said the word die, I cupped the flower in my hands, holding it against my heart.

“The last petal falls, but all is not lost.”

My hands open in the motion of blooming, as if suddenly a rose has emerged there.

“She's still here, a bud in our hearts;

her roots, our veins,

and as I close my eyes,

I still see her from when I was five:

her warm smile,

her beautiful eyes,

her sweet voice."

I close my eyes, and smile.

Luckily, that wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, despite seeing so many people crying, while I tried to hold back my tears. I even managed to show the motion my rose was doing in the poem, which beforehand I was worried I wouldn’t be able to accomplish.

My poem had finally been read out, so as I walk down towards my seat, next to where my mum sits and weeps, I look straight at the coffin, and say aloud,

"Saraba Obasaan, watashi mune misu. Oresuki otaku,” 

which is Japanese for: "Farewell grandmother, I'll miss you. I love you."

A song is played, and then we exit the chapel, many people, including me, crying. 

My dad’s cousin and her family were crying the most, as to them, this is it; they would never see my Nan again, as they don’t believe in God, or an afterlife in heaven or hell. 

As we get into the car, to drive to the part of the cemetery where she is to be buried, I lean on the car, crying. I can’t stop, once I had a proper look at everyone, and saw some crying, it set me off, but luckily I had already finished what I wanted to say.

The hardest part is when she’s buried. My brother, dad and some others lift the coffin from the car, and slowly lower it into the rectangular hole where she is to be buried. Then as planned beforehand, me, Naomi and Zak each release a rose on top of the coffin, in the hole. 

A pot of soil is passed around, and everyone throws in a handful, and says a few words. That is it, she’s gone. It’s over. A whole new round of tears all over again, but I have people around me who make me feel better, and vice versa- I try my best to make sure they aren’t filled with remorse, and the poem is a part of that.

 I still feel sad, but suddenly my two older siblings hug me, and my tears vanish for the day. 

As soon as my beautiful baby niece Jazmine wakes up, I feel even better; she always calms me down, no matter what is troubling me. So for the rest of the afternoon, I spend time with her, and she makes me forget how sad the past few weeks have been. 

She made me laugh when she flapped her arms about like a chicken, trying not to sleep, and I played with her for hours and hours, making her laugh as I copied everything she did, and pulled faces at her.

I walk her around the house as an attempt to make her drift off to sleep, and while on her tour, I bring her into my Nana’s former bedroom, which now has old photographs of her throughout her life. She catches Jazmine’s eyes, and I smile as I watch the both of them glaring at one another. My Nan had a good life, and now she’s on another adventure, somewhere far away from here: one that we’ll all go on someday. I hope to see her again when I go on that adventure; I just hope it’ll be a good one. 

Jazmine finally falls asleep in my arms, and I gently squeeze her close to me. My Nan is resting now. One long, sleep that is much deserved after the life she’s had. Even though we’ll miss her terribly, it is a good thing that she died. Her pain and suffering is over, and she passed away peacefully, too. She said her goodbyes to us, and even got to see her great-grandchild before she left. Such an achievement: 

ninety-two years of an adventure.