DUST

Shafaq Inayat Ullah

Daastan Publishing 2023

First Published in Pakistan by Daastan PVT LTD

House # A-41, Madni Street, Lala Rukh, Wah Cantt, Punjab 47040

www.daastan.com

www.meraqissa.com

Text copyrights © Shafaq Inayat Ullah

Book Design copyright © Anum Ameer

Edited by: Mariam Rizvi

The moral rights of the writer, illustrator, and editor have been asserted.

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-969-696-838-2  

Printed and bound in Pakistan by Daastan Printing Solutions

Dedicated to my angelic daughter Novera, with special thanks to Professor Murad Musa Khan and Dr. Nazish Imran for providing opportunities to understand mental illness under 18

PREFACE

Dear readers,

I want to share the interesting origin of this book. After child loss in September 19 2021, I started texting to my deceased daughter who was seventeen years old, on her cell phone. She was working on mental health awareness. I used to feel deeply connected with her; spending time with her in her room and by her grave was rejoicing. It gave me opportunity not only to be deeply connected with her but with Allah also.

Texting with my daughter proved to be catharsis, healing and became psychographic. Outcome was almost forty thousand words book in which I tried to understand certain things like death, grief, self-awareness, mental health awareness and relationships. Most of all Quran in terms of quantum physics and humans in terms of chemistry of neurotransmitters with the help of fictious Zainab and her family story. This texting gave me sustainance and purpose of life. I hope you’ll enjoy this totally effortless psychograph.

The author can be contacted at: naghma5048@gmail.com

To lie in the soft brown earth,

With the grasses waving above one’s head,

And listen to silence.

To have no yesterday and no tomorrow.

To forget time, to forgive life.

To be at peace…

Always loved,

Never forgotten,

Forever missed,

Until we meet again.

NOVERI!

Noveri!

It’s all misty, I am in a dense fog. The only thing I can perceive is a vast ocean of silence, but I am not lonely, rather it is a very peaceful silence because it is filled with you. I can feel your presence all the time, I know you are worried about me. I know you are sorry, you never wanted it that way, you never intended to leave me alone, but we can’t undo it. You can’t undo your act and I can’t undo my doings.

The only thing which gives me reassurance is that I will be coming to you soon, very little time left for this temporary short voyage to end and then I will be with you. Till the time I reach you, I will be communicating with you. There is a lot to tell you, Noveri; your child care services, your ambulance service and some other things.

And Noveri, there is much excitement about coming to you. There is no fear of death as I will be with you, and there are no regrets about life either, as beautiful ending is anticipated. Death is peace, and life is no longer an anxiety, it is no more a fear. All I feared is gone. You took away my every insecurity. I oscillate between two worlds, spending some of my time here but soon getting tired with people. Then I begin to long for your timeless zone and to spend time with you there. You know how serene that is.

Hi Noveri! What’s up? Hope the life behind the curtain is soothing for you. I wonder whether it is really geographical? “Where are you? Are you playing? Are you sleeping?” I keep asking these questions but everyone has a different answer. However, two things are certain: first, there is continuation of life and second, you are sleeping peacefully till the Day of Judgment. Hope to see you soon. I will hug you tight and will sleep with you, peacefully.

You know Noveroo! My grief is evolving at a slow pace, but my conscious self is totally denying your absence. When your sister says, “I miss her,” my mind cannot comprehend that why should we miss you? You are with us. I am not experiencing your absence. My soul has imbibed your soul and I can feel you in my womb; those bubbling movements of yours in my tummy, this familiar feeling of having you without visualizing you; the same which I had experienced 17-18 years back when I conceived you and enjoyed your invisible presence. Now after almost two decades I am feeling the same. I enjoy you deeply, very deeply; your rejoicing, ethereal presence within my soul. When you were in my womb, I waited for 37 weeks for you to exist physically. Now I am waiting again for you to become physical; so ironic, waiting is a common factor before and after your entrance-exit bracket.

Mama loves you, Novera.

Mama wants to know something!

What do you think Noveri, is the soft, brown earth more cozy or was Mama’s womb more secure and comforting? I know your answer; you think both are the same - secure, mystically silent, and timeless. Timeless, with no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

You didn’t like the interval between your entry and exit; you have to forgive life. You have to forgive us, although we cannot bring us to forgive ourselves. We all made you alone. You did not deserve this kind of exit.

23-12-2021

I am developing a strange feeling. As soon as I slip into sleep, I feel as if I am drowning, and someone is pushing my supine body deeper into water. There is no escape except getting up and staring into the darkness around me. Even in sleep, my conscious mind is so vigilant in maintaining the denial about your absence!

24-12-2021

Hello Noveri, another day without you, another day to make efforts to break the denial, but this is actually too much for me. It is too much for any parent that their adorable child would choose to quit the world instead of staying with them. It is not your departure, rather it’s your decision that is haunting me.

The only thing I could boast about in my life was my successful parenting, and my only functional passion was motherhood. It was such a dynamic and strong emotion that I was able to overcome the pain of losing my parents and siblings. Whether I overcame their loss or was it denial, one thing is certain; I stayed functional; motherhood kept me up and about.

My most groomed, most beautiful, most caring and least demanding child challenged my parenting, even my existence. Your soft pink spongy lungs transforming into bleeding and stiff organs, your BP monitors, your blood, in fact my own blood, flowing outside in those pipes for dialysis.

How can I forget your beautiful hands, which l used to love holding and kissing, now becoming lifeless, dead, cold and swollen.

The day your bleeding lungs became airless, the day your tired heart stopped beating, the day your charming, intelligent eyes became vacant; that was the moment in my life on this earth when all that I had feared was gone. l touched your hands, I kissed your cold cheeks, looking at the monitors showing zero oxygen saturation, showing a straight ECG line. You were gone, but I am still standing there.

Bed 14, zero saturation written on monitors, doctors examining, declaring your pupils as dilated and fixed. You were gone, but I will stay here for the rest of my brief life, staring at monitors, staring at bed no 14, waiting, waiting and waiting, to wake up from this bad dream.

I am frozen.

I am vacant.

My soul has left my body to stay with you.

25-12-2021 

1.16 a.m.

My first birthday without you.

Missed you the whole evening.

I was feeling your presence, I could feel you beside me while driving, listening to your giggles.

Noveri, I love your final resting place on this earth; peaceful mosque, lush green fields, silent house.

We all will turn to DUST, to silence, where words are not needed, where the silence speaks.

Sitting beside that heap of dust, which carries you in its lap, all my five senses are well connected with yours. I can visualize the transparency of your soul. I can hear your whispers in the soft breeze. I can touch your feather like presence in the rays of the setting sun.

I want to stay there with you in moonlit nights. All of a sudden, this DUST has become precious to me, holding you just like I used to hold you when you were here. I bend and kiss your forehead, loving the taste and smell of this DUST. I extend my hands to touch your cheeks, adoring the texture and purity of this dust.

You have become DUST.

Allah literally formed us from mud; Adam means, “son of red earth”. When a mother conceives, the life begins to form. The food she eats, comes from earth. When we die, we go back in the earth. I will have to wait to complete my cycle of DUST. I wonder, why can’t my lungs go stiff? Why can’t my heart stop beating? When will I stop existing?

As I am waiting to exit, I will tell you a story; the story of Zainee. But at the moment I am so shocked, I am so numb. I only wish to sit beside you silently, till my departure.

Every time I intend to start the story of that girl, who reminds me of you, I get entangled in your charming eyes. Whenever I think of your charming eyes, I cannot overlook two things; intellect and innocence.  Your beautiful eyes, full of dreams and ambitions. Those inspiring eyes; eyes, which were determined to conquer the world and to transform it. Dreams in those eyes were waiting to see a world of justice. Those eyes were waiting to fight for rights of women, children, minorities, and what not. I used to get worried about you, you were an empath, and being so empathetic, where would you stand in this unjust and cruel world.

During your last six months, I used to perceive conflict, anger and rebellion in your eyes. I used to get scared. Nobody can relate, measure or imagine the depth of grief and nobody can even begin to think of that excruciating, intractable pain, which stabbed me when I saw those beautiful eyes devoid of any passion, devoid of innocence, intellect, anger or rebellion. There was no conflict in those eyes.

You were not gone yet, but your eyes were empty and lifeless, telling me that you will be gone soon. You don’t know how much I adore and cherish the beauty of your eyes. One cannot imagine how much I long to see life in your eyes again. I wish I could give my every breath, every drop of my blood, just to see those eyes come alive again. I love you baby, you are my pride, a gifted child.

I am becoming a part of this stillness, beside bed no 14, and stillness surrounding your soft brown earth. I am torn apart. For me the moments when I was beside you in Intensive Care Unit, the earth had stopped rotating, the moon had stood stationary in its orbit, the universe had been converted into stillness. I closed your half open eyes, those eyes will never perceive this world, will be unable to see any dreams. They were not anxious about any worldly injustice, just quiet eyes matching the still universe around me. I kissed your eyelids and holding your cold hands pleaded with doctor to let me stay with you. I wanted you to leave in my presence

And I remember your departure.

You left on Sunday night.

Two days before, on Friday night, I began to notice changes in your monitors; oxygen saturation falling to 91, blood pressure fluctuating. Though everything came back to normal, after resetting supports but I could see that you were slipping. I could sense that there was very little time left. Stillness will soon be converted into emptiness.

You were a baby sibling to my older children. How would I bear Hamza’s pain? How would I bear Hashim’s anxiousness? How could we break this news to Mariam, who left her baby sister five months back hale and hearty. Baba was unable to visit you. He kept asking again and again, “When will my doll be coming back home?” and Chacha, he would not let them wean off the supports.

That Friday night I could not go home. I stayed there with you - any moment now and you will cross this transition. Wait was the most difficult thing in those moments, I am holding your hand, focusing on your beautiful, innocent face; as innocent as it was when I used to put you in your cot.

Soon, very soon, emptiness will replace this stillness. In this brief time, I want to memorize your skin texture, I want to kiss your feet, I’m kissing your fluffy cheeks. I am stopping your doctor not to prick your abdomen to remove the extra fluid. I am pleading with them not to prick your lungs. Every needle pricking your soft, young, raw flesh is actually piercing my flesh. Every prick in your body is making my soul bleed; it will keep bleeding till we reunite

 “LET HER GO.” It was the last request I made to the doctors treating you. It was the last pampering I could offer you and it was the last prayer I could ask my Allah. We were walking on a thin rope of wait and anxiety.

I was unable to understand Zainab’s existence. Her coming into this world was as untimely as your exit from here, as untimely as passing away of Zaini’s father, Omer Jahangir, leaving Zainab Omer unattended in this world. I do not doubt His mercy, but I am unable to understand the wisdom behind it.

So, you won’t stay, you have decided!

It’s evening of 19^th September, it is getting dark outside. Darkness is settling down within me too, you are dying. Seems that the whole world is praying for and loving you. I wish you can see, I wish you can perceive all the prayers, all the love everybody is offering you; not only family and friends, even trees and the soft breeze. The whole nature wants you back on this earth, and I know one fact; you also wanted to live.

As long as I live, I will smell your clothes, I will touch your things, the bed linen on your bed where you were lying, looking at me with vacant and repenting eyes, and the chair where you sat after persistent throwing up and your voice telling me about you. I will preserve everything in my head. You wanted your elder brother with you, he was the one you spoke your last words to.

You are dying, I wanted to go home and change my dress for your final prayers. I went home and I changed and suddenly I was stunned with a strange feeling. I felt your strong fetal movements in my tummy as I used to feel when you were about to enter this world. I was feeling the same movement as I did when you were about to enter into a more beautiful world.

I rushed back to you, driving fast. Your brother was waiting for me to take me inside. Baba, Chacha and your brother, who is 14 years older than you, still were refusing to wean off your supports. My son was not ready to lose his baby sister. When I looked into his eyes, there was nothing except deep pain and despair. Hugging me he asked, how would I live without you. I looked at both your brothers, and frantically called your elder sister. I decided that I had to be on survival and resilience mode. Once again nature has left me with no options.

As the ceaseless mill of time goes on without leaving any footprints, this time will also traverse the space, leaving deep imprints on our souls. Worrying intensely about your elder siblings, I am thinking, ‘Maybe I am the strongest one out there. Despite the fact that you have not only broken our hearts, you have broken our egos too’. I am not feeling wounded, because as you are shedding this raw, beautiful, uncreased cloak of body, your energies are still there; slowly traversing behind the curtain, devoid of mind, body and worldly emotions, surrounded by peace and serenity, inviting my energies to synchronize with yours. That is why I am not wounded, I am not alone, I am not going to miss you. I am the best one out there because I am a mom, and my energies will diffuse across that curtain and I will partially be with you and part of my soul will stay with your siblings.

When your brother guided me inside, towards bed 14, I could not see you. My eyes were confirming monitors - zero saturation, straight ECG, quiet BP monitor; it was not stillness, it was emptiness; even ten more lives are not enough to believe that you are gone.

As one scene captures the magic of the whole movie, as one word sometimes defines and builds a relationship, similarly this one moment will be defining our whole lives from now onwards.

Your doctors and paramedics are trying to counsel me; I am hearing myself say, “Give me my daughter back.”

I want to take you out, to Chacha, to Baba. You should be with your brothers now. They should also be in conversation with your fading energies, with your pronounced silence and still very profound presence. We want to preserve this moment, this sacred moment, which made you free from every agony, which made us free from every misery, I was perceiving only one thing - PEACE. We are standing outside They are making you neat and clean, free from every support.

My senses are becoming very selective. My physical body is not perceiving people around me, crying family, concerned friends. I am not able to hear them. All my senses are focused upon you. Emptiness is slowly being filled with peace, devoid of wait, devoid of anxiety.

I saw your stretcher coming out, you are covered in all white, they are handing you over to Chacha and I am sure these are the safest hands, which will bid you farewell from this world with dignity, with respect, with love.

So soon, so very soon, you are converted into a dead body from our lovely, adorable, sensible Novera.

My only sense which is operating, is my sight. I am looking at your body. Everything else is being deleted from the scene. I just saw them giving your death certificate to Chacha. It’s handed over to me, and I am recalling the day when Baba gave me your birth certificate. So short a bracket; only 17 years between these two certificates. Why were you in such a hurry?

Despondent, I am pleading with Chacha that I shall give you your last bath. He listened; he respected my wish.

I owe my life to him, for everything, for every effort he made for you.

I want to communicate with you one last time.

With the help of five others, I am giving you your last bath, remembering vividly your first bath soon after your birth. You were an angel entering this world as innocent, as beautiful, as helpless as you are today after 17 years.

Your curly long hair is all silky and soft, and I am having the luxury of shampooing it after so many years. Just 12 days back you were buying your hair accessories; shampoo for your curls, conditioner for your perms, some special oil for that amazing long hair. What will I do with these new bottles and how will Baba, Chacha and your brothers return you to the dust, where this beautiful hair and amazing curls will have no meaning?

I am washing your face for wuzu, looking at your beautifully upturned nose. I should memorize these last sights of your physical expression. After today, you will express yourself as perception, as a feeling, as energy. For your siblings, for the whole family and friends, I will have to perceive your energies positively. I will keep your memories beautiful, without resentment or anger. You were meant to be with us physically for only 17 years, and with me for 17 years and 9 months.  From now on you will stay forever with us in every form but physical; even as a shadow or a dream.

Words are the least reliable form of communication, I won’t be needing them to communicate with you, to reach up to you. I will sit for hours and hours by your side, near the DUST, which is going to own you now, the DUST which was allotted to you before you were born. I will sit by the DUST and shall listen to your silence. I am looking forward to the day when you, me and your loud silence will be talking with each other and I will be completing that untold story of Zainab Jahangir’s Doll, the delicate girl who always reminds me of you.

As I am washing your hands now for wuzu, all of a sudden, my heart sinks. I am kissing your swollen palms. Even this swelling is unable to erase your lines - your life line; it is there, clear and long. Then why are you leaving? What made you go?

Your feet, I don’t just love your feet, I am almost obsessed with them. l used to massage them, used to kiss them, but nothing matters now.

Your place is all ready. Chacha and your brothers wanted you to be there with your grandfather who passed away two months ago; in the village mosque, built by your Dada, near our farmhouse.

And Mama is glad as you are not taken to a conventional graveyard. You won’t be alone. You won’t be afraid, rather mama will not be afraid.

We reached there at 9 a.m. By 10 a.m. you were carried to your final destination on this earth, leaving material, time and physical concepts behind, starting a new quantum of life with no concept of time.

Strangely, I am not wounded, I am not lonely. Your passing away is unfolding a universe within me. You are gone, leaving behind an excitement of new awareness, an era of internal decoding is gradually dawning upon me.

So, this was how life was defined - entry into this world from mama’s womb; a hollow, blind space, which is not scary but cozy, unaware what is ahead outside this womb. Lying there with little or no knowledge. And exit via a hollow blind space, again not scary. By will of Allah grave will also be peaceful. Between this entry and exit we are tested with this phenomenon called life. Our immortal soul wears a cloak of mortal body to survive this short span of journey, tested by time, divided by past, present and future and conquered by two important faculties; memory and imagination and defeated by thought and emotion.

I want to console your siblings, but I am at a loss for words. It’s difficult at this point to make them understand that this parting is very temporary. It’s difficult to make them believe that you are still existing. Maybe this life package was better for you. It had to be like that, as our packages are opened up in divine order. They should accept and they should take this moment as a chance to shift their perspectives.

I know you are safe. I know you are peaceful in your space, the space which has no dimension of time; a timeless world. In your previous stay, time was an illusion, our naive perception of its flow does not correspond to physical reality, reality is just a network of events onto which we base our past, present and future. Existence of time comes not from our knowledge, but from ignorance, it’s just a fourth dimension.

And in this fourth dimension of time, though it was many years ago, I can still appreciate intelligent eyes and shining curls of Zainab Jahangir, born to Omer Jahangir. Zainee was not beautiful, but once caught by her charm, one was bound to get addicted to her.

1.

Life would have been heaven to her. She was the only granddaughter of Jahangir Alam who would go to any extent to make his granddaughter and his only grandson happy. Zainee was born, after a gap of 14 years. Yes, I remember Sikander Jahangir was 14 years older than Zainee. Omer Jahangir and his wife had faced three or four pregnancy losses and one cot death before they had Zainee.

Even in that sexist era, Jahangir Alam and Omer Jahangir celebrated Zainee’s birth. Novera, I remember as if it was yesterday; the grandiosity of that house and glamorous entry of Zainab Jahangir.

Yes, it would have been heaven if it wasn’t for her bipolar mother. Zainab was raised like a princess, adored by three males - Papa, Dada and Sikander, but no one can predict divine fate, no one could foresee those shadows of debilitating mental illness that would shape her upcoming decades, and the internal confusion of her mother that would take its toll on coming generations.

I am missing you Noveri!

I want to stay with you!

I am sitting beside you; A heap of DUST.

I come all the way for this DUST and spend hours and hours communicating with you. As soon as I start her story, I get lost in your mesmerising presence.

I am missing you Noveri!

My hands crave to feel your texture, my arms long to have you, but your presence in this silence is pronounced. I cannot see you or touch you, my senses fail to perceive your new existence, but I can feel your presence, I can feel you are listening to me.

I vividly remember the upbringing of Zainee; pampered and spoilt by her three male relations, but strictly monitored in conduct, academics and socializing.

For Omer Jahangir, her father, she was the sole satisfaction of his life; answer to his pain, remedy for his loneliness.

Noveri! I remember when your breath was leaving your lungs and your heart beat was quitting your heart, I was thinking about Zainee.

At the moment when you stopped living, I reflexly thought of Zainee; the way she stopped living as a daughter, as a sister and as a wife. It was her rebirth, like a phoenix, and she started to live as a mother only.

As far as Zainee’s memories go, she would see herself lying prone in front of her father’s washroom, waiting for him to come out. No amount of reassurance was enough for two-year-old Zainee, and it was one of her daily rituals. As far as she could trust her memories, she would remember sitting on Omer Jahangir’s office table. Even when she was three, she would love to see her doting father working, and Omer Jahangir would love to have her around.

It was for Sikander and Zainab that he had to maintain an office in his residence premises. He could not afford to leave his children to face the toxicity of that mental illness, which took its maximum toll on their lives. To Omer Jahangir, this buffering was essential, although it was very clear to him that this setup would hinder him in exercising his full potential, but he was unable to take full stride, especially for Zainee’s sake.

It was one of the most beautiful as well as most agonizing evenings. Sikander had to look after Zainee as Amma, their mother, was away for a national tour regarding some social work fundraising and Dada had left for an international journalist’s conference.

Since her mother had left, she was annoying Sikander with her constant crying for her mom, and it was quite usual for everybody in the house to face such a tantrum whenever Amma had to go out of station. She would agonise herself and she would agonise everybody around her. This continued till the time when Omer Jahangir entered the house with a tricycle for her. Her exceptional memory could register the twinkle and excitement in her father’s eyes for a whole lifetime. He was more happy in bringing this tricycle home than his daughter was.

The evening became pleasant after that.

Zainee would always remember the ecstasy of this evening, but would always get agonized by separation anxiety whenever her mother was not around. It was a usual tantrum of Zainee.

2.

Noveri, it has been three months and 22 days since you left us.

I am glad I am able to communicate with you. Coming Sunday your friends are coming to our house. We will sit in your room; we will be having the food you used to like. I am looking forward to it. They wanted to visit you in village mosque, but I always love to visit you alone. When nobody else is there, I can connect with you deeply, because there are no distractions. I can share and enjoy your space, then I can talk for hours and hours.

There is so much to tell you about Zainee’s life; interesting, full of youth, full of life.

She was such a lovely soul. I remember she used to follow her father’s instructions regarding Amma’s complex mental disorder. When she was in grade 10, she literally memorised every article which Omer used to give her regarding bipolar disorder. He was able to bring up his children in such a way that they could segregate a disorder from a person. He would appreciate Amma’s exceptional IQ, he would admire her energy, her management skills, her commitment to relationships and he would make the children appreciate her too. He would encourage them to overlook her overspending, her compulsion to talk and sometimes inappropriate social behaviour.  After all, Amma was his first love, love at first sight.

But you know Novera, life happens randomly. The decisions and choices made in a specific era or scenario may not be feasible for another era or situation.

So, acceptance and compliance, taught to Zainee, which were her major qualities then, were going to become her major disqualifications in her future life.

Novera! The lessons, values and conduct you used to discuss with me, alas, Zainee was too oblivious and naive to learn them.

She knew of only one safe behaviour, and that was compliance. Zainee was becoming engrossed in pleasing people, unknowingly neglecting herself and perhaps her kids also, to whom she was the only functional parent and to whom she was the only support and only anchor to fall back on.

 Omer Jahangir would never consider Zainee as having share in his inheritance, he would only consider Sikander as far as inheritance was concerned. Not only patriarchal, he was part of that society which was totally patrilineal, believing only in male lineage.

Despite the fact that Zainab Jahangir was heart and soul to Omer Jahangir, he would never consider himself responsible for her life after her wedding. Of course, he would go for the best education and expensive dowry. In turn, Zainab would never disappoint her Papa, especially when he was already disappointed with Sikander’s education. Army was the only goal for Sikander and he managed to join the Army.