I remember her soft rhythmic breaths like the rustling of the wind in fall.
The way she gripped her two pinkie fingers to the edges of her wheelchair
That dawned each a silver ring.
It was hard, at first, to be around her. It was hard for her to accept me as
One of her own, for we could not communicate.
I remember the dark nights on the streets of Mumbai.
The potent smell of horse shit and cattle dung,
As my Nana walked me down a quiet cobblestome road.
Almost too quiet.
The palm trees standing tall, swaying in the wind.
Before every time I would lay eyes on her, my mother would pull me aside and whisper something into my ears. We could not communicate.
I would never retain what my mother had spoken in its entirety, and instead suffice by mumbling on. My older family would gather around her, but I would hang back,
Afraid.
I wanted so much to talk to her, to understand what she had spoken about me,
But I know that she did not take my memory to her grave. We could not communicate.
Her vibrant blue scarves and striped riddahs just covered her enough so that you could only see mere wisps of her darkened grey hair.
She always smelled of perfume,
The kind that you don’t find in stores nowadays.
The old kind that is musky and overwhelms you.
I remember kissing her warped and wrinkled hands, wilting away with age, before she was wheeled away; never really knowing her.
We were estranged. She was my grandfather’s mother. My mom loved her because her dad looked up to her so much, but I didn’t feel any connection.
We could not communicate.
And it saddens me because I am not sure I cried when she died.
It was a performance, fake tears maybe. I didn’t know yet how to feel or what to think. I thought I barely knew her at all. It was hard for me to feel, so I tried hard to feel someone else’s loss. Someone’s pain. Someone who could communicate. So I felt, and I cried. The tears poured out like a waterfall; I cried like the sky cried. But I could never feel it true; I could only see her scarves of aqua blue. I could not communicate.
