On grief and healing…
Reflections, one year after my dear aunt’s passing.
One morning about 3 months after my Ameh passed, I got an alert that my voicemail box was full and while clearing through the junk messages, I stared at the names associated with the voicemails that I never deleted — one of them is my late grandfather and the other simply reads “Khani.” It seems cruel that two of the most important people in my life and the only two stars of my lifetime voicemail box would be taken from me in the same year.
I was hesitant, but it felt like it was the right time to listen to the messages. Half way through Ameh’s third message, I was choking on my tears and then just wailing. I can distinctly remember the very few occasions on which I have howled with that much grief. I later tried to explain to my husband, what it was that caused me to unleash what felt like an avalanche of emotion.
Her voice, her exuberance, her utter delight at everything I did just made me feel so seen. She reveled in what a wonderful mother she thought I was. She was always gorbooning me as if I had done some amazing heroic thing and she loved me in a way that felt so powerful, so untethered, so fierce — and I crumbled with the realization that no one else could ever make me feel that loved. No one’s words will ever shake me the way hers did. The thing is, she didn’t just say it. She believed it. She truly saw everyone’s light side, had allowance and held space for their dark side, and was the voice of affirmation I was unconsciously continuously seeking.
That morning marked the end of the first season without her, and we have now spent four seasons without my Ameh Jila.
It was a year of many firsts…
The first Hanukkah I didn’t send her photos of my kids lighting the menorah
My first birthday without hearing her voice say “Sanam joonam, che roozee oon bood!”
First time booking a flight to NY without telling her first
First time I didn’t hear from her on my children’s birthdays to tell me what an amazing mom I am and how lucky I am to have my husband as the father of my children
First Nowruz, Passover and Rosh Hashanah that I didn’t set myself a reminder to try to call her with well wishes, before she could beat me to it.
First time she didn’t call the minute I got into Pouya’s, or Houman’s, or Payam’s or Doctor’s car at JFK to do a catch-up call while I was en route to see her in less than 30 minutes.
And the first time I’m coming to NY without seeing her…
Over the past four decades, this family has grown and expanded and migrated and whenever I was planning to be in town, whether taking the train from Boston or flying from LA for work, it was inevitable that a few cousins were out of town, or my aunt and uncles might be traveling. But Ameh was always here. I knew she’d always be here and because of that, there would always be a reason to visit. There was no trip to NY without seeing Ameh and Doctor.
She was the heart of this family, and kept us bonded consistently with a gentle but mighty commitment to what it meant to be family
To be here, to be on this coast and not have her a phone call away in the same time zone, feels bizarre and uncomfortable and sometimes terrifying.
As I packed my suitcase, I thought about how we define our relationship to places. If NY was Ameh and Ameh was home, what is NY now?
Since I moved back home from college 20 years ago, my relationship to this place has evolved. What used to be an entire circle of friends in Manhattan, is now down to a couple dear ones who stayed, while the rest moved on.
I miss them and I miss the energy and excitement that they brought to my east coast visits — but I forgive them. They found the loves of their lives. They moved to places better suited to raising children. They took their dream job. They are still my closest friends and I still visit them and even though it doesn’t look like it once did,- I am at peace knowing we lived what we could when we could and that we are still special to one another.
I think about how I still relate to those friends as our relationships have evolved, and I know there is a lesson in how I can maintain the magic and warmth that embodied my relationship with my Ameh Jila. It may not be as simple as a phone call, but I know that there is a special long distance plan that will sustain our connection, and I will continue our visits in spirit.
As we start our second year without Jila on this earth, I am comforted knowing that she will still be with me through every season.
Next week, When I light the candles on the Chanukkiah she gifted me two years ago, I will remind my children the warmth that my Ameh brought to so many lives with her enduring love, compassion, and innate ability to be present.
And after the eighth night, I will carefully store the large Chanukkiah I handmade from the rosewater bottles we poured upon her gravesite last year. I will remind myself that we can create light from our pain, and that there is a bittersweet beauty to the way in which we grieve and heal.
On New Year’s Day, I won’t be too busy to call my grandmother, aunts and uncles, to wish them a year of salamati and eshgh and I will see her smiling, knowing that she is the one who modeled that commitment to connection, acknowledgement and love.
On my 40th birthday next, I will hear her voice in my head: “Sanam banoo eman! Chehl Sal peesh, yazdaheh shab, yehkee as behtareen Roozah-ye zendegee eman bood.”
And my children, many years from now, will likely articulate that NY is their other home because home is family and my Ameh, with every act of kindness and love, small and subtle or brazen with obvious significance, had a deep impact on every being that was in her orbit. It was she who encouraged us to gather, to not give up on one another, to unconditionally forgive, to speak and show our love, and to think deeply about what mattered and how we exist in this world.
I miss her so much, but I also feel her so much. She will never really be gone.
