grandparents

In 2006 when I was in Dhaka, my grandmother pulled aside her beige sari and unhooked her blouse to show me the raised uneven line that ran down her chest. I was both saddened and repulsed by the ugly scar as I had seen the video sent to the States by the Uttara Heart Center the year before. I pictured the steel forceps pulling her dark skin taught, the instruments tangled in her body fat and the dull throbbing of her aged heart. At times like that, I wished I had chosen the medical profession so I could understand the condition that plagued her.

I never knew how old she was, or how old my grandfather was for that matter. That was the last time I saw the both of them. My grandfather died three years later on a blithe morning, in the backseat of a micro van next to my aunt. They were on their way to Dhaka from our village three hours out of town. My family did not tell me for a week as I was taking my finals during my senior year of college. When I finally learned of his death, I spoke to my grandmother on the phone, and she said- “Have you heard? Your brother sleeps.”

She followed him two years later, the week I turned 24. Sometimes I forget that they are no more and I think, if I travel just 8,000 miles I will see them as I left them.