23 years ago, I lost my uncle to suicide.
Today, January 18, 1994 feels like a lifetime ago.
23 years ago, I lost my uncle to suicide.
He sponsored my parents’ immigration.
He’s the reason I’m a US citizen.
He’s the reason I’m a New Yorker.
He’s the reason I have what I have.
The reason I earned not 1, not 2, but
3 degrees, working 4 jobs, in 5 years.
He died when I was 4. I have only two
memories of him. I brought him orange
juice, he smiled, and he patted my head.Then he hung himself. From the shower
rod in the bathroom. They took me to the
morgue to see him. I’ll never forget his face.
After he died, they said he won’t be forgiven.
That he won’t go to Paradise. That he would
burn in hell for taking his own life. That the
sight of his cold, dead body, hanging off a
bathroom shower rod, meant nothing to them,
and so it shouldn’t matter to me. They called
him a thief and a criminal. Relatives’ words.They laughed at his mother, my darling angel
grandmother, for grieving his loss. Laughed.
To this day, nobody can tell me, why, then,
does his grave lie at the feet of her grave?Doesn’t Islam say, “Paradise lies at the feet
of your mother”? (Hadith). Yes, Islam does.
Grief. Grief is valid. Grief isn’t temporary.
Grief is permanent. Grief is a life sentence.
Grief can also be a death sentence. I know.
People ask me, how I became depressed.
When the panic attacks and anxiety started.
This. This is how. I never had a childhood.
It didn’t end on 9/11. It ended 01/18/1994.It’s why I was a class clown. It’s why I write,
why I make you laugh most of the time, and
cry some of the time. This is how I cope now.(I’m safe. I’m not suicidal. I’m totally fine. You
learn to force your grief to become functional.
Somewhere along the way, you adapt, even if
God, the universe, friends and family don’t.)RIP Shams Mamoo. I miss you so much.
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
— Henry Scott Holland (1910)
A butterfly lights besides us like a sunbeam, and for a brief moment its glory and beauty belongs to the world, but then it flies once again and though we wish it could have stayed, we feel so lucky to have seen it. — Anonymous/Unknown
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
— Mary Elizabeth Frye (1932)
POST SCRIPT FROM THE AUTHOR
Greetings, Medium family. This story is one of many eulogies in my first book, a memoir titled Brown Grass. For this reason, and so many more reasons unspoken and perhaps even unthought of yet, I still struggle to find the right words to articulate the magnitude of this loss. In my work and past lives as a graduate public health student and professional (MPH), mental health advocate, suicide prevention activist, former crisis response hotline volunteer operator, intimate partner violence (IPV) emergency medicine researcher, preacher and motivational public speaker, I learned a few salient, hard, inconvenient, ugly, hairy, monster truths, over and over and over. One of them, what I’ve been living with for exactly 23 years, is this:
Grief is valid. Grief isn’t temporary. Grief is permanent. Grief is a life sentence. Grief can be a death sentence.
That’s why this has been the rawest, most difficult thing for me to ever type. The loss of my uncle to suicide in January 1994, and the decade-long death of my grandmother to grief, advanced dementia, and what I will go to my grave arguing was in fact a broken heart and the loss of her will to live, followed by my grandfather’s sudden demise five years after, comprise a trio from hell. These are the singular events of greatest impact in my life.
“Wait. Not 9/11”? №9/11, and the 15 years since of being scapegoated, otherized, dehumanized, treated like a domestic terrorist, considered suspect for just breathing, public enemy number one or enemy combatant take your pick, being subject to Patriot Act micro-aggressions, being forced into the lead role of unwilling victim of many hate crimes, being intimately acquainted with the TSA’s Feel-You-Up service and then being expected to say thank for being violated, seeing childhood friends and familiar faces entrapped, detained, tortured, deported, and plain disappeared… only to stumble into a nightmare which began 10 weeks ago today, white supremacy has a new address and it’s called 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — or 721 Fifth Avenue, depending on whom you ask — felt like fucking static shock compared to this loss. Ask anybody who’s lost a parent, or their best friend, or is grieving for a lost childhood robbed from them. It’s just not the same.
I have a simple ask here. I want to share my story, because it forms the basis of my upcoming debut book, a memoir titled Brown Grass. I don’t want to pimp anybody’s suffering, especially mine personally, for fame and fortune.
Hence, I decided a long time ago, and will commit it in the future, to first publish Brown Grass here on Medium in its entirety. Because I am amongst the last of a dying breed of unrepentant perfectionists, it still isn’t ready yet. Share this story, only if you believe it’s worth spreading. I myself think it is.
I leave you with wise words I’m trying to implement. Fade to black in 3, 2…:
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time. — Jack London’s Credo
CALLS TO ACTION
1. Recommend this story. It helps others see the story, lets me know my work is worth writing, reading and recommending and makes me feel validated and fuzzy, because honestly, whose cold, dead heart isn’t instantly thawed and revived by the dizzying dopamine of notifications? Like, share, retweet, lather, rinse, repeat. Also, the doctors say if I don’t feel fuzzy, I’ll die, due to a rare deficiency in social currency triggered whenever my Klout score drops below 70. It’s 67 right now. Not a good look. Do you want me to die?! Didn’t think so.
2. Share this story: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, etc.
3. Connect with me: Medium, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Product Hunt, AngelList, Quora and Quibb. (I think that’s all of them!) Write me via email too! Call or text if you want. (917) 982–3849. I’m always happy to make new friends, listen, support, and be helpful in any way I can. That’s why I’m Medium’s resident cheerleader, duh! :)
