On the day of Madar Joon‘s one-year death anniversary, my oldest brother took me to an art center, perhaps to spare his six-year-old sister another day of grieving. While I knew why everyone was spending the day at the cemetery, I took his hand as he walked me to the big building after we got out of the cab. He sat with me, or stood nearby as I and the other children drew by our instructors’ guidance. I didn’t particularly like any environment where I was told what to do, for in Tehran nothing was really fun even if you were just a kid. But I think part of me had wanted to be at the cemetery; I never liked feeling left-out. I was already too conscious of what was happening around me, even if no one really explained death to me. Even when my aunt gave me her religious understanding of it from the holy book, I knew I couldn’t depend on that to explain why my 92 year-old grandmother, who I had spent many afternoons and evenings with, was lying dead on her bed, her daughter Soraya sobbing at her side.
Seventeen years later, what I remember is that while everyone left, my brother and I stayed behind, and I watched the street from the living-room window. I never had a voice, but if I did, I perhaps should have said that instead of pretending things are normal, I too would like to be at the cemetery. I didn’t cry when she died, nor on later occasions when I did go to the cemetery, but I shared my family’s sadness, along with the unstoppable sobs of my aunt Soraya. It is the process of understanding that pertains to growing up, to helping a child understand that pain and loss are part of life.
Later in life, especially after our immigration, my parents continued to leave certain decisions unexplained, and it is now on me to try and move on and understand why things happened the way they did. This feeling is not so much different than being a child, only that now I have no one to hold onto for protection.