Death: between Love and Myths

 

When COVID-19 came into our home, it came with me.

I was coming back from work, carrying a heavy truth on my chest, so heavy, I could barely breathe.

I had always told them to be careful, stay safe, because I didn’t want to get infected and have to take time off work.

I loved my job so much. But I was selfish.

That selfishness turned on me. I brought it home.

I met my dad downstairs. We went up to the home together.

I kept looking into his eyes, my throat tight, my heart screaming while my mouth stayed shut.

I told him.

He looked at me with that same soft gaze he always gave me, the one that said, “It’s okay.”

He also said it with his voice.

We told the rest of the family. He and my sisters decided to go to the hospital.

He never came back.

In the second week, I visited him.

He was in the ICU, surrounded by machines, but his eyes were searching for me.

His gaze was broken.

He asked me to look after my sister, who was in her final year of school, and he was more worried about her than himself.

He was happy to see me, but sad because he was weak, and I saw it. He saw that I saw it.

In the third week, they said he was getting better.

There was a visiting day. My mom was going, and I said I’d go tomorrow, once he was out of intensive care.

But my mom hadn’t even arrived when his condition worsened.

It was late.

His broken gaze never left my mind.

I made du’aa, I prayed, “Allah my God, if bringing him to You is better for him, then I leave him in Your care.”

At 2 a.m., I woke up to noise in the house.

My older sister was cleaning. I asked, “What’s going on?”

She said, “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling.”

My brother came home, knocked on the door, and said, “Dad passed away.”

Everyone was crying.

I stood still. It felt like time stopped.

I whispered, “Alhamdulilah.” I knew Allah had answered me.

It was a Friday. A lockdown day.

No one could move around the city. 

No one came to the funeral.

I didn’t even get to see him. I didn’t get to hug him. I didn’t get to say goodbye.

When I was young, they used to say that if many people came to your funeral, it meant Allah loved you.

I never thought much about it, but I believed it.

But my father, who I know was close to Allah, had no one at his funeral.

Does that mean Allah didn’t love him?

Impossible.

That’s when I realised: maybe it’s just a story we tell ourselves to feel better.

I wish he was here now, or that I had realised it all earlier.

I never spoke about these things, especially the religious ones, with anyone but him.

He was the only one who listened without judgment, who let me ask without fear.

In the 2023 genocide, I lost Doaa’, my closest friend.

But we didn’t just lose her as a person; we lost her body, too.

She vanished with the missile.

She loved everyone, and everyone loved her.

But no one attended her funeral. Not even her.

I still wait for her.

I know she’s gone, but something in me refuses to believe it.

No grave. No goodbye. No last moment to hold onto. 

Her death wasn’t seen; it just happened, quietly, suddenly, and then she was gone.

Maybe that’s why I still feel like she might come back. 

Even though I know, I still ask the same question.

Does that mean she wasn’t beloved by Allah? 

The bodies were everywhere, in the streets, under the rubble, in front of children.

There was no time to bury, no place to bury.

People were decomposing in front of their families, and no one could do anything. 

I saw people, so many people, who didn’t even get a patch of earth to hide them.

And for those who did, the price of burial was often impossibly high.

Even then, the grave wasn’t truly theirs; it was shared, temporary, and conditional. 

Does that make them less worthy? Less loved?

No.

But war doesn’t recognise worth, love, or dignity. 

Throughout the war and the endless loss, 

grief became a companion to the bereaved.

It sat quietly beside people as they boiled water, as they searched for bread, as they tried to sleep.

It didn’t ask for attention. It didn’t scream.

It just stayed soft, heavy, and constant. 

Death isn’t just an end; it’s a moment of transformation.

But in war, that regeneration is interrupted. The rituals that help us make sense of loss are shattered.

Maybe funerals aren’t proof of love.

Maybe graves aren’t guarantees of peace.

Maybe rituals can’t always carry what’s inside us.

But we remember them.

We remember their faces, their laughter, their prayers.

Maybe war took their bodies.

But it couldn’t erase them from us.