Grief

On love and on loss.

This newsletter wasn’t meant to be on grief. I wanted to write about the surrealism of American suburbia last month, but instead, I’ve only been able to think about the tragic, unexpected passing of my uncle Farrukh-aka.

I found out the news through a phone call. He was unwell for some time, but due to his health complications, no one, including him, was aware of the extent of his condition. “Okay”, I said in response to the news. No tears came, just confusion.

I put the phone down and stared ahead at my desk for a few minutes before hopping on a scheduled podcast recording. I needed to make it through that hour. I needed to pretend that the phone call didn’t happen and that I was still existing in The Before.

When someone dies, there’s a distinct separation between before and after.

Before is safe. It’s your text conversations. It’s their voice in your head. It’s their unsuspecting social media posts. It’s all the moments that have led you to the present. It’s like your last computer game save — a moment you can come back to if you force quit the application. It’s a bad dream you can wake up from.

After is chaos. After is a high-pitched noise piercing your ears, one so high you almost can’t hear it. After is time collapsing in on itself. After is the hollowness in the pit of your stomach. After is the barrage of condolences you don’t have the strength to answer. After is all the memories you’ve forgotten pouring in. After is a cry, but the person you want to hear it is gone.

We had just had a conversation about his plans for the year. How he was looking for a new place to live. How he wanted to get a new job. How he wanted to move closer to his friends.

We were just sitting at the kitchen table and he asked me if I still listened to the same bands as a teenager. He told me about the recent time he went to a Lacuna Coil concert and loved it.

As I was leaving for Denver airport, the last conversation we had in the car was about how it’s cheaper to die in America than to call an ambulance. You really couldn’t write it.

One of my favourite old-school photos of Farrukh-aka.

We grew up like siblings. Only six years older than me, he was less an uncle and more a brother. We bonded over bands like 30 Seconds To Mars, Evanescence, and Linkin Park. We liked the same type of trashy TV show. We played games like Counter-Strike, Need for Speed and Mortal Kombat.

When my family and I moved to London, there was a period when he’d pick me up from school. I was always happy to see that it was him over anyone else. Mostly because we would go to the corner shop and spend a few pounds on chocolates and crisp packets.

When we’d wait for the bus home at the bus stop, I’d perch on an end post of a low brick fence while he’d lean against a lamp post. We always assumed the same positions. Some days we’d talk, and others, we’d listen to our music.

Whenever I’d get into fights with my parents or other older family members, I would go to him for support. He seemed to understand my specific frustrations around feeling misunderstood.

For the past month, the grief has felt at its worst at night. When someone you don’t see or speak to too often dies, you can fool yourself into thinking that they’re not really gone. That they’ll still be there at the next family gathering. A bit grumpy, as always.

I lie there thinking about all the conversations we didn’t get to have. How we grew apart as his British visa extension was rejected. How I didn’t make more effort to reconnect and try to be more involved in his new life in Uzbekistan, then Russia, then America. Neither did he, I suppose. Yet I always felt the more responsible out of the two of us.

He didn’t have an easy time in America. These days, we often hear of immigration success stories, but the reality is that most people, especially immigrants, are crushed under America’s punitive systems. I wish I had spoken to him about that properly, not just in passing.

Mostly, I wish we spoke more about the good things in his life. In the moment, when having conversations, it’s so easy to complain and focus on the negative. Yet now, I don’t even know what made him happy. Who were his friends? What were the little things he was looking forward to in his day-to-day?

I wish I got to know him better during our adult years. The stupid memes he posted on Facebook don’t give me nearly enough information.

What I’ve been reading:

• ‘Everyone’s a sellout now’ - by Rebecca Jennings for Vox. Touched on so many issues with creative work today and all the extra labour necessary to increase employability and in some cases, earnings.

• I’m reading Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key at the minute. It’s about loneliness, envy, grief and failure. I appreciate how thoughtful and gentle the writing is.

• I also read Kate Mann’s Unshrinking, on fatphobia. It felt a bit dense at times, but I thought there were a lot of themes and interesting thoughts to reflect on.

What I’ve been working on:

Work-wise, things have been a real mixed bag since I got back from Uzbekistan. This month, I’ve worked on:

• The book. Slowly, since my uncle’s passing.

• For Dazed Digital, I wrote a quick one about how Taylor Swift doesn’t want us to know about her carbon footprint. When researching this piece, I also came across this essay by Hannah Williams on Swift’s hollow empowerment narrative, which I thought was very good.

• I’ve been learning how to produce audio and working on my first podcast for hothouse bookclub, which is COMING SOON! In the meantime, we got featured in this Dazed article!

• I’ve got a new part-time job at Central Saint Martin's, so I’ve just been settling in there. I’m so excited to have one foot back in a creative environment.

• Been brushing up on my editing skills to do some shifts for one of my favourite climate publications.

• Writing a serious climate briefing/report, which I’ve never got to do before and have picked up a tonne of new skills.