Tripping on Tears (16 page)

Safia’s parents wanted to see her; wanted her to come home for a visit, but not me. That was the one stipulation; she was allowed back in the house, but they weren’t ready to accept me into their home, or acknowledge my place in their daughter’s life. At first Safia was upset by that, telling her sister that if her parents wouldn’t accept me then they couldn’t accept her. While I was glad she was willing to stick by me, I convinced her it didn’t really bother me – I thought it was important that she reconnect with her parents, if that meant by herself, so be it. I figured in time, eventually they’d take a chance on me; so in time, all would be all right.

In the long run, Safia gave in and consented to her parent’s terms. As such, she began going over to her parent’s home from time to time for dinner. It seemed that her parents had also needed some help with their grocery store, and Safia, along with Rijja and her brother, took turns working some shifts to help out the family. I stayed out of the picture, except for occasionally dropping her off in front of their house, and picking her up afterwards. Her parents and I occasionally exchanged a glance when we accidently spotted one another during these drop off and pick up times, but neither of us tried to communicate with the other. I didn’t want to put them on the spot, and figured until they were comfortable enough to acknowledge me, there was no point in pushing the matter.

I noticed during this time that Safia also seemed happier. She was never really a down person, but there seemed to be a little more of a bounce in her step; she now had the best of both worlds, a steady, loving relationship with a man who truly loved her, and the love of her family. It was perfect. I knew in time all would be right.

I was wrong.

Life was great, but little did I know that my life was about to be shattered forever.

CHAPTER
Thirteen

SAFIA
Was
DEAD!

Safia was dead!

I look at those words and can’t believe what I’m reading; even now, after all this time, they seem unreal, false, an aberration.

OH GOD!

Oh God!Oh God! Oh God!!!

They say with time the pain goes away, but they lie. The bastards lie.

My Safia was DEAD.

CHAPTER
Fourteen

“FROM
What
I’ve been told, she was working at her parent’s grocery store when it was robbed. It was close to closing time and she was alone...”

Kareena was extremely upset and I could see that as she told me this, she was trying her best to keep her composure, but it was hard.

“...someone came in, took the money and apparently he...he...”

I just sat there in silence, half hearing the words, and half lost in my own mind, trying to find a corner of it where I didn’t hurt; where I could escape reality.

“...apparently he stabbed her to death,” she paused, almost as if the next words were too hard for her to say, but she forced out nonetheless, “Left her lying on the floor to...to...to bleed to death.”

Tears were racing down Kareena’s face; me, I cry now, but at the time, if anything, I was just in a complete state of shock and disbelief. I was desperately hoping to discover that Kareena had a sick, sick sense of humor and this was all a really bad joke.

Safia had left home that night saying her parents needed some help tonight at the grocery store; they had an event to be at, and Rijja and her brother were unable to fill in. Safia was happy to help her parents out. Sometimes when she visited her parent’s place, she stayed overnight. She and Rijja could then stay up chatting and gossiping with one another. That was a good thing. So when Safia hadn’t arrived home that evening, I didn’t think anything of it. I figured she was staying at her parent’s place; the fact she hadn’t called, well; we’d never been sticklers about communicating everything we were doing, every move we made. I knew she was going to be working at the grocery store, and I knew she’d end up back at her parent’s house, so I really didn’t need her to call me and tell me the obvious.

From what Kareena told me, her parents assumed Safia had closed the grocery store and come home to our place. As far as we were all concerned, she was staying with the other, safe and sound. Instead, and I don’t know if this is true or not, because not much was revealed to me, but Safia was stuck on the floor of her parent’s grocery store, slowly bleeding to death. She might have been killed quickly by the knife wounds, but in my mind, as I tried to comprehend the horror that had happened; she was there alone, bleeding to death, wondering why no one who loved her was there to help her. Why we’d all failed her.

“This can’t be real,” I said to Kareena. “No, no, this can’t be happening. NO!”

Kareena just looked at me; there was nothing to say; there was finality in death and whether we accepted it or not, Safia was dead.

I guess I’d been lucky that Kareena had even bothered to show up and let me know what had happened. Safia’s parents definitely weren’t going to call me; but as I discovered, they did want to communicate with me, and had enlisted Kareena for that task.

“What’s going on?” I finally asked, still trying to grasp and mentally accept everything. “Is there going to be a funeral? A viewing?”

Kareena looked suddenly even more uncomfortable.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“There will be a funeral. Safia will be buried within twenty-four hours of the police releasing her body. It’s a custom,” said Kareena.

“Where? When?” I asked.

“You can’t attend,” she said.

I just looked at Kareena. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“What?”

“I’m really sorry, but her family requested that I talk to you; they don’t want you anywhere near them; Safia is being buried as a Muslim and your attendance, in that the two of you were living together as man and woman out of wedlock, would be an insult to them, and dishonor the family at this time with others who were there to pay their last respects.”

I had to take a moment to let this sink in. I wasn’t allowed to pay my last respects to the woman I loved? I’d be an embarrassment? I was the one who loved her. Her parents had disowned her; turned their backs on her. If anyone should be taking care of Safia at this time, arranging her final resting place and funeral, it should be me, the man who actually truly cared. I desperately wanted to lash out, but I knew that wouldn’t be fair to Kareena; she was just delivering a message.

“I know this is horrible,” she said. “I don’t agree with them, but they asked me to talk with you to convey their wishes. Listen, if you do go it will only cause a scene; you know Safia wouldn’t like that.”

“This is fucking unbelievable,” I uttered.

“That’s not all,” she said. I could see looking at her that she was uncomfortable; Safia’s parents had placed Safia’s best friend in a most uncomfortable situation, at a time when she was no doubt hurting as much as the rest of us.

“What?” I asked coldly.

“Safia’s stuff,” said Kareena, “her personal items. The stuff you have here. Her parents have requested that you pack up her personal belongings and have them returned to their home.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They just asked me to ask you to do so.”

I was on the edge of something terrible. Grief, anger, homicidal rage? Maybe one and all rolled into one at the same time. This was too much. It took everything I had to contain myself, to remember that Kareena was just the messenger. She wasn’t being cold and unreasonable; it was Safia’s parents who were.

I knew exactly why they had asked for Safia’s personal belongings back; they wanted to erase any memory that she had strayed from them; that she had been in a relationship with me, a white man – a non-Muslim. Tragedy has struck and Safia was gone, and now it was time to eliminate me from their thoughts as quickly as they could.

“Tell them I’ll pull things together, but it will take a day or two; maybe a week. Okay?” I said.

Kareena just nodded her head, “Yes.”

I told her that as a way of avoiding an argument. I don’t know what Kareena thought about Safia’s parent’s request; whether she agreed with them or not, and to tell you the truth, I really didn’t care. I just didn’t want to get into an argument with her regarding it, if she was leaning in favor of them. There was no way in hell I was going to return Safia’s things to them. No fucking way in hell. These were the people who had sent her packing; turned their backs on her. Now they wanted to erase her existence from my life? Remove any sign that we had been together and loved one another – deeply? No fucking way. They didn’t deserve Safia’s sketch books, the ones she had just started filling in as she explored the world of art and being an artist – something, I might add, her parents failed to support in her. There was no way I was giving up that little piece of her; that piece of her I had been given for only a short time – too short a time. They weren’t going to selfishly take that away from me. Their daughter had fallen in love with a white guy, a non-Muslim, as far as I was concerned they had better grow up and accept that.

“Are you going to come to the funeral?” Kareena asked, standing up.

“No,” I said. “I’ll respect their wishes. Only because I know Safia would want me to.”

While I would have attended and paid my last respects to the woman I loved, I really didn’t want to see her parents or anyone else from their community of belief. Right now an anger seethed in me that I wasn’t sure I could control if I were confronted by any of them. Safia would not have approved of that anger; she had had to balance two worlds and try to keep everyone happy; there was no point in those two worlds colliding at her funeral and causing a scene.

Safia also knew I loved her; not just saying it, but really meaning it, from the heart and soul. She had led such a short life, but could safely say, as she traveled
the
undiscovered country
, that in this world, this existence, she had been truly loved and known true love. Showing up at her funeral or not showing up at her funeral didn’t change any of that.

“I’ve got to go,” said Kareena. “I just can’t believe she’s not here. That she’s dead. What am I going to do without my best friend?”

I knew how she felt; there were moments of awareness and moments of denial, each of them revolving in my mind, and no doubt hers. We were here talking about Safia, about what had happened to her, her death, but at times it seemed like it wasn’t real; and then there were the moments where it hit you hard, like a sledgehammer between the eyes – no, forget that, a sledgehammer between the eyes would have been preferable to this – and the reality of the situation was just all too real in your mind; threatening to unhinge you completely.

I moved to Kareena and took her in my arms. We’d never really been that close; actually I was pretty sure Kareena really didn’t like me, but tolerated me because Safia and I were together, but now, at this moment, in both our grief, we both needed someone to hold on to; a shared misery.

“Is it possible for you to do something for me?” I asked.

Kareena just looked at me, questioningly.

“I’m not going to attend the funeral,” I said, “but could you find out what funeral home they’ll be using?”

“Why?” she asked.

“I just need to know where she is, that’s all,” I answered. “I don’t know why it’s so important to me, but I just need to know where she is. Could you do that for me?”

“I’ll let you know,” she said.

Kareena turned to leave, but hesitated.

“Did you really love her?” she asked, turning back to me.

The question momentarily took me by surprise.

“It’s just that, her parents, some of her friends, well, they figured you were just having some fun. Safia was always beautiful; they figured to you she was exotic; that maybe you were using her for some fun; using her until you got tired of her and then you’d send her packing; move on to the next conquest. No one could believe you might actually care for her or love her. Most people thought the worst. Safia deserved better, though; she deserved the real thing. So, did you really love her?”

“More than you’ll ever know,” I said.

A small smile crossed Kareena’s face, fighting against the sadness that was there.

“She did deserve it,” Kareena said, before turning and exiting Safia’s and my home.

When Kareena left I didn’t know what to do. I was just staring at the walls – lost.

I’d considered calling my brother or sister, maybe Duncan, Munroe or any of my other friends, who would gladly rush over to be with me at this time, but didn’t. There’d be too many questions, especially about the funeral or a viewing, and when I told them what I’d been told, they’d be outraged, insisting that I do what I wanted to do, to hell with her parents. I couldn’t deal with all that. Instead of mourning the loss of Safia it would devolve into hatred – and that wasn’t right. As far as I was concerned, for Safia, I had to be the one to take the high road. I had to be the one to try and understand.

I wasn’t ready to face my family and friends; I know they’d share in my grief because they loved Safia as much as I did. Instead, I did the only thing I could think of, I got dressed, got in my car and headed for the grocery store.

As immigration had developed over the years, there were some communities that had turned very ethnic. Safia’s parent’s grocery store was in a community that catered to immigrants of South Asian descent. Over the years, the strip plazas that had featured variety stores and such, had changed complexion and now were very ethnic, with Shawarma shops, Indian video stores, and the like. A lot of the schools that had been in these communities, and run their course, had been purchased and turned into Mosques or Temples. A lot of what I remembered of my childhood, passing through these communities, was no more.

I’d never actually been in Safia’s parent’s grocery store. I’d kept my distance out of respect for her family and their wishes – always insanely believing that sooner or later they’d come around and I’d be welcomed into their world. I wasn’t going to enter the grocery store that morning either. The place was closed down, a lone police car still parked out front, and yellow police tape around it, signaling to everyone passing by that something horrible had happened here. It wasn’t a big store by any means, but as I sat there looking at the yellow police tape and staring at the door, it seemed smaller and lonelier than I remembered. It looked like a horrible place to be lying on the floor, your life slowly seeping away – you, lonely and afraid, hurting.

I cried.

I’d parked a far enough distance away so that I wouldn’t be noticed if any of Safia’s family happened to stop by the store.

I was anxious. Moments hit me where I just felt like I had to do something; I wanted to crawl up the walls, run a marathon, anything. I hated those moments, because I know they came from deep within, and I knew why they were there. I just wanted to numb myself; unfortunately, I don’t really drink. I was in pain, I was anxious from time to time, and I was angry – not a good combination. When those moments hit, I also felt like lashing out at someone; getting into a fight. I wasn’t much of a fighter, or was all that much of a tough guy in my youth, but that didn’t matter, I wanted to take on the world and if it beat me down, maybe it’d knock me unconscious and that alone would help to numb the pain within me.
I wanted to die.
I could not imagine moving forward without Safia in my life.

Have you ever actually contemplated suicide?