For Samaya.

New beginnings and new endings. An ode to a wonderful human.

Time isn’t linear, and years don’t exist.

I welcomed the New Year with a funeral.

When the clock struck midnight, I was hurtling through the sky in a metal tube some thirty thousand feet above the Mediterranean. Row 16 was my palace, partly because nobody wanted to travel during the festivities and partly because a commercial airliner had been shot out of the sky where I was going just days ago. The collective psyche on the plane was one of restraint.

My shoes were off, feet tucked neatly under a branded Lufthansa blanket, with three tiny pillows stacked behind me to mitigate the impaling armrest. My nose was so dry that every breath felt like an invitation for a nosebleed. I had no tissues either, but I’m glad I didn’t end up needing them anyway. At that moment, all I needed was a pen and paper, and both sat neatly on my lap. I was content to welcome the year like this instead of in some sweaty dark warehouse I paid to bop my head in, ever more disconnected from myself and those around me.

Planes are strange places. A metal bird with a hypnotizing hum. I was dozing off when the intercom chimed into some static, followed by a piercing voice. A young, presumably German, pilot greeted us with an apology for the rude awakening, kindly informing us that we’d just entered the New Year and would be getting free champagne to celebrate. In response, some scattered applause, a single cheer, and a crying baby it had taken an eternity to put to sleep. I don’t think that mother felt so eager for that champagne right about then. I think she’d rather pass it up for a couple more hours of silence instead.

The whole experience got me thinking about how relative time was. If our plane hypothetically flew over either pole at this moment, we could’ve spun in a tight circle, perpetually time-traveling between the two years. Past and future. Over and over. We wouldn’t even leave room for the present. There never seems to be room for the present. Poetically so, it punctuates the core issue, doesn’t it? It’s funny how we understand and rationalize time.

My plane touched the tarmac at around three in the morning to a round of relieved applause. I used to wince at the performance, but now I see there’s quite a lot to celebrate at any given moment. We lived to potentially see another day. How is that not worthy of a standing ovation? I pulled my phone out and switched it on to see several missed calls from my father, followed by a text. “Don’t come to Baku, come to your grandparents’ home at Masazir”. My grandfather had recently been out of the hospital, so it only seemed right that they were welcoming the New Year at his own home. I couldn’t wait to see everybody.

I disembarked the plane, shuffled through passport control, and hitched a ride out of the centre toward my family with a boy not much younger than me. He was nineteen and worked as a driver. I was thankful he was around so early in the morning and had agreed to drive me out of the city. We made some small talk, and he questioned my accent like most tend to do. Like clockwork, I told him I was born abroad, and like clockwork, he asked me why I ever bothered to return. He shook his head and with a wry smile exclaimed that I should leave and forget this place for good. I smiled back and nodded. There’s never a right answer to this question. Some forty-odd minutes later, we ground to a halt by the local market down the street from my grandparents. I pay my fare and step out into the foggy night. My father and uncle were across the street, both walking towards me with their hands tucked in their leather coats. I looked down at my own hands in my own leather coat. I guess we’re a lot more similar than I like to think. I smiled and extended a hand. My father returned it.

“Yeni ilin mübarək. Başın sağ olsun. Nənən dünyasını dəyişdi.”

One crisp handshake.

One beginning.

One ending.

I welcomed the New Year with a funeral.

My grandmother was a very inspirational woman. At a young age, she decided that she would not be constrained by the limitations that life imposed on her. Not by family, nor the Soviets. Not by fears, nor by pleasures. In her steadfastness, she certainly broke some hearts, a price that many of us paid for in return. She had travelled through the dense markets of Khartoum and mingled with locals in Baghdad. She held meetings in Riyadh and strolled by the corniche in Kuwait. All at a time in which the common Soviet barely knew what happened in the town next door. She studied to become an Arabic language interpreter and still made time to work on her poetry and be a mother. As I sit here writing this, I notice just how much she has become a muse to me. I wonder what she’d say if she knew I’d taken to writing just as much as she had. I wish I could’ve shown her my work. She’d probably have a lot of criticism to give me, she was always blunt like that.

I remember her as a woman who fueled my sense of adventure in a society that told me to get in line. As a kid, I’d spend some summers with my grandparents in Kuwait City. I’ve always held fond memories of my summers there. Deathly humid, we’d wake up to the morning sun beating on drenched windows. The tarmac so hot your sandals could melt. Some mornings, she felt giving and would treat me to breakfast outside, to the objection of my parents. After all, I was her first grandson. There was a McDonalds not so far away, and coming from a health-conscious family meant that grandmother’s treats were a rarity. She only ever took me to breakfasts there, but this specific morning was quite special. We stepped out for our short walk towards the corniche for some factory synthetic pancakes and a small plastic carton of maple syrup. We’d always pass a large grassy hill by the four-lane highway. As a kid, I ached for just one chance at rolling from the top, just to feel something. My grandmother knew this too, but my request had been shut down more times than I could count.

I gazed over at the lush green hill. It just looked so out of place in contrast with the barren plots of sand and rock that littered the gaps in between the high rises. So inviting. A small oasis in a vast land of glass and marble. My grandmother was looking over too, her steps slowing to a halt as we gazed over at the hill side by side. Following a peaceful silence, she sighed and said “You know what Akif, I have an idea”. I couldn’t believe it. Was it happening? Without another word, she yanked me with her as she ran to the top of the hill, laid flat on the ground and propelled herself down the steep carpet of grass. I was aghast. She belted out in whoops and laughter while cars honked their horns as they sped by on the highway. This was early 2000’s Kuwait we’re talking about, not Amsterdam. For many, watching an elderly woman roll down a hill by a highway was unfathomable. I wondered at how many dinner tables my grandmother was a hot topic that night, all because she wanted to put a smile on my face. She sat up beaming with life, hair ruffled with bits of grass caught in her locks. Her long skirt was stained with patches of green. “Aren’t you joining me?” she shouted up. You bet I did. I think we must’ve rolled a good fifteen times before we locked arms and stumbled toward the McDonald, fighting stitches of laughter. I felt on top of the world at that moment. I think I’ve been chasing that high ever since.

Looking back, all that processed sugar could never surpass the sweetness this single memory held for me throughout my life. It must’ve been one of the last times that I could share a bond with her like this. Regrettably, her health began to deteriorate in the following years. She’d become easily irritable and snappy on account of her forgetfulness. Sharing a space with her felt like walking on eggshells. Looking back, I’d be scared too if every memory I ever cherished felt like it was slipping through my hands like the desert sand. Alzheimer’s is one cruel illness, as it seems to punish those who love you the most. With each passing summer, my grandmother seemed to remember me less. First, it was Akif. Then it was my grandson. Then it was my daughter’s son, and before I knew it, I was just that guy. She stopped letting me hug her, and I followed suit as I knew she was frightened by this strange man coming in for an embrace. I’d repeat the story of the grassy hill to her like a broken record each and every summer, hoping to catch a glimmer of familiarity in her eyes. For my mother, I know this must have been crippling. There was so much they never got to speak about, and now, she didn’t even remember having a daughter in the first place. For my grandfather, the love of his life no longer smiled at him. There was nobody to share their grand love story with. It was just a legacy my grandfather would have to uphold for both of them.

Now, she’d returned to where she’d come from, and the living room at my grandparents felt particularly empty. The new year was very silent. Very still. They’d made a bed for me on the same couch she had spent her last years and subsequently passed away on. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, I listened to the soft breaths of my exhausted parents. I marvelled at how death was so interwoven with the human experience. How ordinary it all was. I felt awkward as I seemed to lack the understanding of how I was meant to feel. How I was meant to act. It was then I realized that there was no right way to act. There were no cameras, no audience, and certainly no role to audition for. This wasn’t a movie, it was just life running its course. It was just me, like a newborn again, curled up on the couch with my mother and father as if I’d never even grown up. The couch on which my grandmother had taken her final breath. I took a deep breath myself and reached over to the armrest above my head. Good. It was still there. The small patch of missing faux leather my grandmother would incessantly pick at like a scab. It had become a tick that slowly left the armrest in tatters. No one had it in them to try and make her stop. She wouldn’t remember anyway. I traced my hands along the outline as I lay there. Something about it was comforting. Life and death come hand in hand here.

I welcomed the first morning of the year at the foot of my grandmother’s grave, yet to be adorned with a gravestone or outline, flowers or fancy bricks. It was just a mound of dirt, a humble sight. By no metric did the simple view speak of the grandeur of a life well lived, and I guess that really is the truth of it all. We can’t take anything with us. Not money, nor what we bought with it. No pancakes and syrup, nor the lush fur coat my mother now wore as she stood a few steps behind me. Maybe not even the memories, but it wasn’t about any of that. It was what she left behind with us that truly mattered. She left me with a memory that forever served as an anchor of kindness. An invitation to swim against the stream and pursue a life that I found worth living. She left me with an example of how dreams are juggled with responsibilities, and how firmness is balanced with empathy. At that moment, it seemed that I finally understood immortality. The only way to live forever was to leave the world better than you found it. My tears hit the freshly churned soil in pelts as I honoured her legacy. I hope they nourish the flowers I’ll lay here every chance I get.

I welcomed the New Year with a funeral.

Strangely, I’m grateful for it.