The women's majlis: Dealing with the pain of losing a loved one

The sparkling light of Eid shone through the window as I hummed an old tune from the artist Mehad that reminded me of my grandma as she lay in bed. Her face was silent, her eyes distant. I watched and waited for movement, but there was nothing.

Releasing her tenuous grip, my guiding light had departed. My grandma’s death was no surprise, because she had been struggling with cancer for a while. I remember the day she got back from Germany – at that time, my aunts refused to let me see her, because she wasn’t in a good state. I begged and pleaded with my Aunt Fatima to let me in so I could kiss her hand and forehead, even if just for a minute.

The relationship I had with Mama Mouza formed from the time I was 10. I’m the first grandchild in my family, and my dad used to travel a lot with my mum back then. I had some health problems to deal with, and both of my grandmas insisted that it was best for me to stay in UAE with them. They practically raised me. Back in the day, the only mother figure I had was Mama Mouza. I used to imitate the way she acted. I looked up to her like no other.

Death is difficult to understand, as anyone who has lost someone knows. I thought that by writing about my loss, which was years ago now, it might help me make sense of it.

My grandma was my constant, then one day she disappeared and never came back. A few years before her death, she was diagnosed with melanoma – I remember that day so clearly, the family gathering and people sobbing.

In life, one will endure many ups and downs, good times and bad. There’s a good chance at some point you may encounter an event that will alter your life permanently. People say it’s how you bounce back from a life-changing event that makes you stronger and a better person. The flashbacks from my family’s loss in 2002 brought about so many emotions I felt suffocated. It broke me for a while. I couldn’t think straight. I lost my faith in God, and thought a lot about how I unfair I felt life was. At that time, I wasn’t ready to let my grandma go, but are we ever ready?

It seems selfish when it comes to how much pain she must have been in. I just learnt to deal with it, and it has forced me to appreciate every moment I spend with my loved ones. It made me want to show them their worth, and the place they fulfil in my heart; the constant appreciation I have that they are in my life.

It doesn’t get easier, and I know it’s said only time that can heal the pain of losing someone close, but it doesn’t. I think about Mama Mouza all the time. Sometimes, reminiscing makes me relive the joy of her existence, and I find tears flowing down my cheeks. I often think of the popular funeral poem: “If only tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I would walk right up to heaven and bring her home again.”

Maitha AlKaabi is an administration assistant at Abu Dhabi Media.