Love from a to Z

ODDITY:
WORTHLESS LIVES
With her arm around me, she told me everything Mom had told her. That
they’d found out exactly how Daadi had died in October.
The day when she’d gone to enjoy a wedding in the mountains the way
she had when she was a young child—which meant traveling out of her
familiar city.
A drone strike. A missed target. Collateral damage.
A wedding caravan of cars and buses dispersed, shredded, gaping holes,
gaping wounds, missing body parts, missing bodies.
Daadi had wanted to sit in one of the cars, as the bus with the family
members—the one vehicle that had survived the attack—scared her with its
speed and rickety way of moving.
The report Dad went to learn about had all the details.
My hands went to my face, and I cried without stopping.
Auntie Nandy put both arms around me and kept whispering that I was a
beautiful soul and that my grandmother had gone on to the next life and that
she was at peace, and so were Dad and Mom now that they knew what had
happened to Daadi, but I kept crying.
Because it came back to me again, like it had in the fall, that I’d never
see her face or feel her hands again.
Because it hurt that, with the way things were in the world, my
grandmother’s life and her hands, her love, didn’t count as much.
It hurt that some lives were worth less.
• • •
After talking to Sadia and Mansoor on Skype, ten minutes where we each
took turns consoling one another while resharing memories, Auntie Nandy
drove me to the airport.
Mom had a short layover, so we were going to see her in the transit area,
across a barrier.
On the first sight of her, of her smallness, her white trim hijab, the worry
in her eyes, I began to sob. She reached out to me, and I slumped into her
arms.
The rhythmic way she stroked the back of my head for a long while was
the balm I didn’t know I needed. I laid a kiss on her cheek before I broke

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away to let Auntie Nandy hug her.
On releasing her sister, Mom turned to me. “Sweetie, I’ll be back. I’m
going for a few days, and then I planned my trip so that I have a couple of
days here before we go back home together.”
“Mom, how did they know it was really Daadi? That she died that way?”
“There are records that an organization that tracks civilian drone deaths
collects. It just took a long while to get all the information.” Mom reached
out to me again, putting her hands on my arms to hold me steady, to look
into my eyes. “She’s at peace. Remember to make duas for her, darling.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t get Daadi, a certain look of hers, out of my mind.
The one Mansoor and Sadia and I had talked about. That encouraging face
she’d do when she wanted you to try a food she’d made that you weren’t
sure about, how full of love that face was.
And her hands again. This time I saw one of them holding out a slice of
mango, during the times she’d feed me by hand, even after I’d grown up.
Mom’s light brown eyes explored my face with care. “You look tired.
Have you been sleeping?”
I nodded again and put an arm through Auntie Nandy’s arm. “Yeah, I
have. Auntie Nandy’s been taking good care of me.”
“And will continue to. Don’t worry, Leesh. Go take care of what needs to
be done. Zayneb is going to rest a bit, maybe swim a bit?” Auntie Nandy
raised her eyebrows to me and, when I said yes, went on. “And see more of
Doha.”
“And pray for Daadi,” I added, reaching for Mom again. She wrapped
her arms around me. “Is Dad okay?”
“Well, he’s obviously shaken. I’m going to help him settle things, finish
the process of closing up Daadi’s house there.” Mom spoke softly. “We’re
also going to fill out all the papers and make sure her death has been
recorded as a victim of war, make sure it’s on the record.”
“It doesn’t seem like anyone will care,” I said.
Mom glanced at Auntie Nandy before putting a hand in her purse. “I’ve
got some mail for you.”
She held out some envelopes. I noticed a UChicago label on one of them.
• • •
I didn’t get in to UChicago.

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But today, it didn’t matter.
• • •
In October I’d been in English class discussing Hamlet when I was called
down to the office, where Mom told me to get my things, that I was going
home, that something had happened to Daadi.
Now I knew what that something was.
I wanted to know everything that had happened to my grandmother, so
when I got back from the airport, I went online and spent all night
researching.
I found facts I’d never been told.
Facts that I’d never learned as we sat discussing Hamlet.
Millions of victims of our recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Somalia, and Yemen.
Drone strikes that have killed countless innocent civilians—people
picking crops in the field, lining up to buy bread, going to school.
Going to weddings.
With each new fact learned, I felt Daadi’s hand as she sat stroking my
hair while I did my homework in front of the Pakistani dramas she’d watch.
I saw her hands knitting the cozy items she’d make me each fall, and Binky
long before that. I saw her hands holding my face in greeting when I came
in after school, the love in them melting away whatever pains school had
thrown at me, and then those same hands kneading and breaking dough to
make me a fresh, flaky roti, my favorite after-school snack.
I ached for those hands and couldn’t stop the tears that dripped onto my
laptop.

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