The burial was yesterday. They buried him yesterday. Yesterday, when we woke up, he had already been buried under the earth, in Tehran, the land the rest of us left behind.
I wasn’t sure when I would see him again, but I knew that I would. I didn’t think that I wouldn’t have the chance because you don’t think about people dying. You think you have time, but one more morning everything changes. He is dead.
I am going to keep missing him, except this time I won’t be able to tell him that I miss him. I think the last time I heard his voice on the phone was last March for the Iranian new year.
I don’t usually write about death because it never really happened this hard. The last time death happened was when I was 5, so that wasn’t hard. So I never wrote about it. This is me trying to write about it. I think I am failing.
But it’s different this time. I really feel it now. I feel kind of empty now, the sadness drenched in my body, almost turning into vapor. Every morning since Tuesday it hits a different way. Yesterday, I was angry. Today, I am just silent. I don’t want to speak. I wish I didn’t have to eat. I would like to just sleep, but I can’t fall asleep.
Everyone has to go one day, my aunt said when I gave my condolence. I felt pathetic, calling after a year to say I am sorry my uncle is dead. I apologized to her for not being there, but that also seemed pathetic.
It is pathetic to live and then die. I just don’t get it.