I shake my head back and forth, I shake away the idea that this is actually what I am walking up to right now. I am in disbelief.
I knew almost nothing of this man but if I am to walk away knowing what I saw of his death, I know that he was loved and respected and that what we did was right. I stay up at night thinking of that afternoon with him, the afternoon he died. It might be the most important day of my life, and I still couldn’t fully explain to you what I saw that day if I tried. My uncle died December 8. His children were with him and his grandchildren had just visited with him. My aunt cried out for his company in arabic, and my gut wrenched like it does not often wrench in adulthood. I wear a bracelet he gave me in more certain and healthy times and I often stare at it and wonder what he was trying to reach out to me with when gave it to me. You’d never find a more charismatic and mighty character than my uncle Kamal, and I had such plans to get to know him. Such plans. I am reminded of the emptiness I feel for my father when I watch my uncle get lowered into the earth. I am reminded that he and his brothers and their mother have left us with nothing but holes to dig and holes to fill, holes in ourselves that cannot be filled with each other because we were never taught that we’d be enough for one another. In the spaces we have learned to love ardently and unconditionally.
Garbanzo Bae 