My father passed away.

My father passed away two days ago.

It is not something i can really blog about. What is there, really, to say?
that it was a shock? That he went too early, too fast?

They buried him before i even knew. Part of me feels like i did not get to say goodbye. Part of me is grateful for having been spared the terrible trauma of being there, seeing him dead, seeing him getting put in the ground. In my memories, he is alive and talking to me.

Not only do i feel shocked by what happened and obviously very sad, but also, it feels like a whole big chapter of my life has come to an end. My dad's family, big and friendly, with generous spread at every occassion, gathering around to drink, eat and shout at the table...all gone. My cousin and I, speaking via Skype from Canada to Qatar, discussed it last night.

Do you feel this, too, i said to her, that we are the last little pieces of that family jigsaw. Tomorrow, when we are gone, our chidldren will not sit together at a big table. They will not even be there together at our funerals. Who knows where will I be buried, or where my cousin will end up? Our children, raised in different countries all over the world, will never have what we had.

Of course, i also feel awful for having not seen my dad for three years. Money issues, babies and other commitments kept getting in the way. The last time i was in baku, my parents and i, together with my older child sat on a bench at the Boulevard. It was a sunny day, and we were just sitting there, happy, eating ice-cream and watching my girl run around. And my mother, as older people back home love to do, pointed out to me, that i must memorize this day. Imprint it in your heart, she said, because very possibly, this is the last time we sit together like this. Of course, i told her to "stop it!" then. But she turned out to be right.

It is not normal for the English people, for example, to say things like that. To be worried about not living to see each other next year. And I wonder if that is because people don't die as suddenly or as early in the UK as they do back in Azerbaijan, where medicine is so pathetic, and doctors are useless. Who knows how long my aunt would have lived in a different country. Who knows how much medical attention my father would have had in the UK. Life expectancy in Azerbaijan is one of the worst in the region. So yes, my mother was not predicting the future. She was just being realistic about life.