Take Me Where You Are

Category B: First Place (2023) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Tasmiya Haque

This story begins as yours ends.

It is a hazy summer day when we receive your diagnosis; your gaze is as serene as the blue-petaled flowers swaying gently outside the doctor’s office while the world around me falls apart, everything but the neurologist’s words sharpening into white noise.

Sometimes, I sit quietly on your bed, wondering if this is what the empty spaces felt like to you: If all I became was an indistinguishable buzz at the base of your skull as Alzheimer’s took you from me.

I know that it is not right for the living to envy the dead. But maa, some days I am filled with bitterness so profound it aches, burdened under memories that were supposed to be shared. I remember walking through the threshold of our home that fateful day, you trailing behind silently while my throat was choked with sobs. You sat me down and gently carded your rough-hewn hands through my hair, murmuring words in my ear, now lost to grief. How strange it was, for you to console another about your mortality. And yet, it was so perfectly in your nature to comfort your child through their tears, as you had for 20 years past, as you continued to do until you left.

Later, I would ask why you were so calm. Why being told that you were to possibly die ignorant of who you were and who you loved didn’t move you at all. What is there not to fear about the unknown? You would smile, and reply: “It is all God’s plan. What is there to fear under His guidance?” and I would break down all over again, faithless, while you walked a path under the radiance of a deity wholly unfathomable.

At first, small habits, possessions and words were lost to you like petals carried away by the breeze. “Have you seen my – you know, the­–?” a pause. “Your glasses are on the dresser, ammu.” 10 minutes later, I would find you staring out at the wilting blue flower bushes in the garden, confused as to why you were in your room.

Another time, I came home to find you wracked with tears – Your Tasbih was missing, you had explained hysterically. It was alarming; you, who were so calm when a timer was placed upon your life and mind, were overcome with distress at the loss of your prayer beads, polished bronze from years of reverent worship. I will puzzle over this scene obsessively in the future, wondering how it was possible to both love and fear simultaneously, so deeply you are moved to extremes. I will wonder why God didn’t spare you the mercy of a painless death. Why you loved Him when He took your ability to remember all 99 of his names, along with mine.

Time progressed, and so did the curse that stole you from me. I could not pretend to know your burden, to know what it was like not knowing who or where you were. To wander the halls you had walked for the last 3 decades and take each step like the floorboards were foreign to you. To have a stranger trail behind you, calling you “ammu” and begging you to please, put a coat on it’s the middle of winter for God’s sake. I do not know those things, but I know how it is to mourn someone who is still alive. To stare at the face of the woman who raised you, only to be met with the same haunting lack of recognition you feel towards her. I am glad you will never feel such pain.

You slept a lot more in those days. I would joke that you were finally caught up on the sleep I kept you from as a squealing babe, and sometimes you would smile back politely. In others, you would be openly confused. It was after one such jest when you looked out of the window to watch the sunset, as yellow-eyed as the small flowers soaking up its radiance. "Subhanallah!" you exclaimed, marvelling at the brilliance of God and His creations. My eyes traced the lines of your awed expression, and smiled in acquiescence; each of us looking up at our beloved creator.

It came to the point where I knew I did not have much longer left with you, so I tried to fulfill your wishes I had not heeded before, as if somehow it would bring you back to me. I would sit by your bed in the home, clumsily reading verses from the Quran, grasping your hand, frail and cold. I would press flowers into your skin to reduce the stench of disinfectant, hyacinths and forget-me-nots silently professing a thousand sorries and remember me's.

Your story taught me that all memories will eventually yield to time; If there ever was a moment that defied this, it would be the day you said my name; clarity flooded your eyes soon before you passed, ephemeral in its quality. "Habibah." you whispered. Beloved.

"Just because you cannot see something doesn't mean it's not there". Such were the words you would tell me when you noticed my Imaan dissolving: I never truly believed it until then -- because for a moment, I swear I saw my mother again, looking fondly at her daughter. All those days I had searched, you were here. You were here.

Then your smile faded, and you succumbed.

The summer rain falls upon the earth where you rest, nourishing the flowers that protect you as you slumber. I step away from the windowsill to face the Qiblah, to prostrate myself before my creator. I am alone, yet I bow low to hide the tears anyway.

I'm sorry I strayed. I was lost.

Please guide my mother to heaven, God Almighty. Please guide me to her.

I do not know if I deserve salvation. But I know what it means to forget.

Thank you for remembering me, maa.

I love you.