welcome welcome! we’re finally here. between crippling perfectionism and being distracted by putting on events, i’ve finally gotten to write the eulogy that i wanted to write. it took me some time, and i hope you’ll excuse me for missing the last week. i really struggled to write this because i really wanted this to feel grandiose. i wanted this to be perfect in a lot of ways, but i wasn’t really sure what that meant. i realized it was better to just be honest, be me, and put up what i was thinking. this week’s edition will only have my eulogy and the song of the week.
well, here is “Eulogy of the Unsung”
I don’t know how to write eulogies or obituaries. All I know is that my grandmother passed. That detail I found out on November 19th, 2023. I learned her name was Fatima Tun. But I called her Mai Mai Gyi (mai-mai-GEE), which quite literally means Big Momma. She was of Bamar decent, but her roots do also trace back to Ba’hai Patans of India who escaped to Burma to avoid religious persecution. She, however, was born and raised Buddhist. As were her parents, and their parents, and so on.
My Mai Mai Gyi was a traditional Burmese woman. My earliest memories of her were the sight of Thanaka, a paste made of ground bark of a particular Burmese tree, rubbed in circles on her cheeks. I also remember the distinct smell of that paste. Her hair smelt like coconut oil. She wore these really big glasses that both magnified her eyes (and eyesight), but also managed to make her eyes super beady. She had jovial nature, one that’d light up the room. As far as I can remember, she always wore an intricately patterned lungi, and a lovely pink blouse textured by embroidery.
When I was a toddler, I would be able to speak with her in her tongue on the phone or in person when we visited Burma. I never really grew past my childhood vocabulary, so we never really got to know each other as adults. That made things really hard when she last visited us. She stayed with us a few months to receive medical treatment. That last time was different because my Grandfather didn’t tag along. Sure, she was taken to where she needed and wanted to go, and she got to spend quality time with her daughter. But nothing really prepares you for the loneliness that comes over you in Suburban America. Imagine going from a building full of your family members and neighbors you’ve known for years to being in some random house in a country where you don’t speak the lang- you get the picture. It’s a type of loneliness and melancholy I’m not sure I’d be strong enough to bear.
Coming home from school, I’d walk in on her silently and wistfully sitting by the window shedding tears. I’d come give her a hug, she’d force a smile, I’d speak to her in the bit of Burmese I knew, and then, admittedly, I’d get uncomfortable. I didn’t have it in me then to sit in that discomfort and to be human with her. My tongue was tied, and I chose to not do the work to untie it. I carry guilt for that.
My grandfather’s affluent in Burma, but I’m not sure it was always that way. When the nationalist uprising took over in Myanmar, many Indians and those of Indian descent were essentially exiled. He ended up leaving, and left my grandmother to tend to the children. My mother has memories of this. All I know is that my grandfather took on a second wife whilst India, and that he eventually did return to his family in Myanmar. There’s an element here that is worth exploring, but not by me.
I think my grandmother, much like many women of her generation, quietly suffered through slights and hardships that would go on to earn her a type of sainthood she never asked for. She was always grateful and reverential toward my Grandfather. That irked me, but I’m here writing a eulogy for my beautiful Grandma. I’m not writing some New Yorker piece filled with diasporic melancholy deserving of some milquetoast (I fucking love this word, it rocks!) analysis of an undergrad who just bought a Bell Hooks book and learned of Beauvoir last week. Also, my last name isn’t Lahiri. Fucking spare me.
But my grandmother was a saint. Shit, she’s probably the one person of my Mom’s side of the family that my father consistently spoke highly of over the years. I’ll leave it up to your imagination to assess the gravitas of that statement.
It was a long time ago that I made a decision to not care. I don’t mean that in a callous way, although how could it sound anything but that? The bridge between us seemed far too great. Why get close to somebody that lives so far away? Why was I deserving of love from who I perceived to be a stranger? To accept the distance between us was more of an immature attempt at self-preservation.
In my head and heart, as I had often dealt with things uncomfortable, I’d sever the link connection. Over the years I’d smile when we met, always be cordial and say hi whenever she was on the phone, and I’d walk over to show face on the occasional facetime. But outside of my mother’s behest, I wasn’t really be too keen on keeping that connection. Out of sight, out of mind. The other part of it was that I perceived it too painful to bridge that gap. But you can’t simply cut off that which is simply a part of you. No, no you can’t.
The day I learned what happened, I reached out to a few friends and one conversation stuck with me. I’m a little too comfortable with dark humor, and when I deploy it’s definitely there to cover something up. A close friend of mine caught that, and he said, “Listen, somethings are worth breaking for.”
Processing grief for me like dealing with a bird stuck behind multiple walls in some run down house in Florida. A middle aged dude, think Homer Simpson, eating a TV dinner inside of a dimly lit living room chugging down a beer that inevitably spills on his wife beater. He hears the sound of a bird behind the walls, and decides to turn up the volume. he manages to ignore it. Days and weeks go by, and yet he still manages to ignore it. But the chirping of the bird doesn’t stop, no, in some sense it gets louder. So late at night, when he can no longer take it, he tears down those walls in a frenzy. and he uncovers the bird that’s been chirping. He tends to it, cares for it, and nurtures it. And then he wonders why there had to be so many walls between him and this bird, and why he hadn’t gotten to it sooner. And there and then he learns: somethings are worth breaking for.
Rest in peace, Mai Mai Gyi.
Sunday Candy - Chance The Rapper
Thanks for reading this edition. Share this with your friends, your grandma, or your neighbor. And if you made it to the end of this essay and you didn’t just scroll, dm me a 🥁 on either twitter or instagram. or leave a comment! As always,
Sincerely,
Haroon
Missing her a lot💔💔🤲