(re)collection

Bismillah– 

I enter the mosque with my right foot, a sign of respect and humility, following the example of the Prophet Muhammed 

Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam 

This is a place of worship, a sacred space. I have placed my hijab on after 20 years of taking it off, this act also a sign of respect, of my humility. I have come here as the only daughter of six, five brothers follow before me, one mother dressed in black, a father neatly placed in a coffin. 

I begin here, with my right foot entering this place of ceremony, of holy goodbye, of prayer, wash, and worship. The space is sterile; white lights up above shine fluorescent, like that of hospital white, illuminating a sea of black. The people bustle in slow motion; the men make their way up towards the front of the prayer room, the women shuffle towards the back. It has been 15 years since I have seen most of the family here: aunts in hijabs and dark colored saris, uncles with salt and peppered beards, cousins I do not remember the names of. The immediate family gathers in the office of Brother Osamah, the imam of the mosque, who leads prayer. He approaches me, smiles softly with wet eyes – 

“Aieysha, your father was like a father to me.” 

1 

I wake to my mother chopping onions at 4am. She is making breakfast for no one. I hear the knife hitting the cutting board with mechanical precision every tenth second. The smell of cilantro makes it into the bedroom, followed by freshly seeded serrano peppers. After each chop— a whimper follows, and then a wail. I stay silent, taking in the details of the moment: the chopping, the whiff of travelling chilli, the silence of the outside city, the stillness of the apartment, and the wailing of my mother, a prayer to god. 

2 

Ghusl is performed when a Muslim body dies. This is the process by which the body is cleaned before being buried. An awrah is placed over the loins, protecting the private parts from being seen. Prophet Mohammed

Salallahu Alayhi Wasallam 

said to use sudarshan for washing the deceased, the sacred lotus. It is haram to use a soap that is scented; the sudarshan bark when crushed creates a foam, used for purification purposes. My brothers Ahmad, Anwar, and Azaad enter the back room of the mosque, where a metallic table, leading to a basin and faucet, sits in the center of the tiled room. A line pipe with water hoses attached hangs directly above. Brother Mohammed begins: 

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh 

He invites my brothers to stand to the right of my father’s body, turns on the water faucet, allowing a steady stream of water to flow. I am not allowed by my father’s side. Instead, I wait in Brother Osamah’s office with my mother and nieces, collecting the fragments of this ritual. 

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim 

3 

Pops is picking me up from LAX airport before my trip to Vietnam. He whips around the arrival gate, weaving in and out between traffic. Catching me from his peripherals, he swiftly slips in towards the right lane, cutting off several cars and slams the brakes into an abrupt stop where I am standing. He flings the right car door open, “Hop in Dove.” 

I swing my backpack from off my right shoulder and into the back car seat. He tells me to open up the glove compartment to retrieve a CD; on the front of it Gato Barbieri is dressed in a lime green button-down, playing a saxophone with a swanky black hat to match his black shades. Pops clicks to song number two, and Europa plays in the background as we make our way down the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. 

Grief is the space between memory and present. 

“The first time I had seen brains flying out was that day. The contents of the inside of his head splayed across the glass at the bar; it had messed up all the liquor bottles. And I was laughing,” my father says, coughing up the contents of his night spent smoking.

His hand steady holding the wheel as I sat in the passenger seat, holding the details of the memory he was spelling out. 

“And somebody must have called the MPS from behind. The sirens were coming. And the bar man was trying to reach for the phone. I said don’t pick that phone up; I’ll blow your head up, too.” 

He gnarls back the congestion that gathers in his throat. 

“I said, Captain, jump in the jeep!” 

He stops and reminds me that there were no cellphones those days, and laughs. 

“I never drove a stick shift before.” 

I imagine the jeep in his story meandering through swamps, like we weave in and out of traffic. “The jeep was so well synchronized that I was just draggin’ the jeep without clutching in.” 

I clutch the passenger grab handle. 

“Rice grows in water, you know?” 

He pauses, the way he always does when telling me stories, carving space to teach me the ways of the world, while recollecting his memories. 

“And the jeep was going through the water. The jeep was jammin’, girl!” 

His heavy Guyanese accent, flittered with tinges of Caribbean flow then stifled by a proper British finish. 

“But it’s changed a lot. I heard it’s one of the most beautiful places to go to in Southeast Asia.”

He coughs, and is brought back to the images of jungle, of rice, of water, of smoke. 

“The things we did there, no one should have done.”

They say for every American, 40 Vietnamese died in the war. People in Vietnam do not refer to the war as the “Vietnam War,” my father says.

 “They call it the American War.” 

4 

The apartment is a cemetery of memories. What’s left is an ornamentation of diplomas, portraits, and pictures hanging on the wall. There are nic-nacs collected throughout the years: small jade buddhas, eagles made of wood, and gold. In a circular glass case, there are souvenirs from places visited around the world, 1986 Olympics memorabilia, small figurines made of ivory and a series of Swiss army knives. 

In the bedroom there are an array of medicine bottles. A local pharmacy of sorts: bottles of Narcos, Vikodin, grams of weed tucked inside,  and sacs of coke or grams of meth neatly folded into paper packages. There were household meds: Pepto Bismol for my mother’s occasional heartburn, Advil in case someone complained of a headache. Next to the line of medicines, pomade for my father’s hair, travel size toothpaste, an extra set of brand new toothbrushes and Vick’s rub with my fathers finger swab still imprinted. On the floor near my slippers, I find a small glass pipe. The edge of it is burned and black debris stains the inside. I will take it home with me and place it on my altar, a keepsake of my father’s last breath taken. 

5 

In Islam, wudhu is an ablution performed before prayer. It is a process by which one can purify oneself both physically and spiritually. I make my way into the bathroom of the mosque where other women are bent over the tiled basin, washing their elbows and feet. 

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim 

I wash my hands three times, beginning always with the right. I cup my palms to bring water to my mouth, swishing the tap water across my tongue and along my teeth. I softly sniff the water, clearing the canals, washing away the impurities. Finally, I wash my  face, arms, elbows, head, ears and feet. This act is a testament  to my respect for the religion, for this sacred place of worship. It has been 20 years since I performed wudhu, and today I feel particularly impure. I am taking my fathers body away from the mosque to be cremated. It is haram—the ultimate sin.

My Uncle does not look me in the eyes. My aunties shun me. 

My mother, Martha Magdalena Ramirez, wears black shades, fake eyelashes, a gold chain with an eagle hanging from her neck—my father’s favorite animal. My brothers, with their tattoos, bald heads, and gold crosses around their necks, stick out in the sea of Muslims surrounding us. I, on the other hand, melt into the sea of black, holding the weight of this decision, the only one who has fasted during the month of Ramadan, who can recite surahs from the Quran, the only one who knows what haram really means. 

The hijab is wrapped around my hair, tied below my chin, my brother’s tattoos are covered, my mother’s eyelashes are glued on, a prayer is made, wudhu is performed, a body is taken, a family is broken, bones become dust.

6 

I place my hands into the bag of ashes and carefully fill a small glass jar.  I spread his bones, now dust, into the water and air of places I visit. The white chalks against my skin, and nests itself underneath my fingernails. I come across a fragment of bone that isn’t all the way crushed. I squeeze these broken pieces between my thumb and index, realizing this is the closest I will ever get to a hug again. 

In this act, I am brought back to the image of the jungle, of rice, of water, of smoke and now dust.

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