We meet my dad downstairs with all the bags packed up from mum's room and load my sister and my dad's car.
The sky is grey and rain sizzles on the roof tops but none of it seems to matter anymore.
Dad looks at us both, "You both head to mine and your mummy's house and I'll meet you there." With that he heads back into the hospice like a man on a mission to sort out some of the final bits whilst my sister and I pack ourselves into her little Mini and begin driving off to our childhood home in North London.
Although it is a mere 5 minutes that pass, feels like hours before either of us say anything over U2's With or Without You blaring on the radio but eventually we start talking about how we're going to go about taking mum home - neither of us have any idea and suddenly realise that we are in the hands of dad to sort things out seeing as he will be funding the venture and as morbid as it sounds, he had been preparing to say goodbye to mum over 3 years ago when he first knew she had pancreatic cancer unlike my sister or I who tried holding on to a little bit of hope that she would make it through.
If anything, I genuinely thought like those cheesy American movies, the power of her mind would bring her back from death's door - such a fucking shame that is not how the world works!!! Good people always tend to die too young!
Anyway, I digress. The truth of the matter that slapped us right across the face was that relying on dad was somewhat worrying really.
Despite being a very successful neuro-surgeon, it was mum that dealt with all practicalities seeing as dad tended to be such a hypochondriac and panicker - guess they do say doctor's make the worst patients seeing as they know every symptom but still, you'd think my dad'd be a tad tougher than he was especially with him becoming full time carer for mum over the last few years! However, if anything, from the moment mum was diagnosed to perhaps 6 months before she died, you would have probably thought dad was the one terminally ill due to him losing so much weight and his beautiful head of thick black hair turning bright white; compared to how he was at 60, in only 3 years he had become a sliver of a man.
After much discussion of what to do I finally piped up, "I was planning to go back to work up North, but think it may be an idea if I call it a day until we get everything sorted. Will definitely help dad and think mum would want that!"
Upon uttering these words, my sister seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Not that she was incapable of supporting dad in making the necessary arrangements but rather, having a full time working husband and two children under 3 would make it difficult for her to accompany dad everywhere and totally impossible to stay with him 24-7 at the house when she had her own household to sort.
Add to the mix that all those we knew in the Bangladeshi community would be constantly harassing us for updates on funeral arrangements and badgering us continually regarding our thoughts and feelings, and you had a very good reason as to why she preferred having me present on the front line at the house. You see, Bangladeshi folk don't mourn in private - they shout, they scream, they cry blue murder. They beat their chests and whale and expect you to do the same. A slight change to this over-dramatic reaction and then the interrogation starts: "Why aren't you crying? Didn't you love your mother? You obviously did not care about her as much as we did!". The next thing you know, instead of sorting out mum's last wishes, guess my sister was worried that she would become embroiled in arguments and usually end up justifying her existence whilst offending some elder auntie or uncle by saying they were talking bollocks! Did not matter whether the auntie or uncle was a real blood relative or not, when it came to the Bangladeshi community, you were equally likely to get flack from blood relatives as you were a mere stranger especially if they were older than you!
It also did not help that my sister having lived only 30minutes away from my parents in London, had already suffered enough - some of the narrow minded people in our community constantly wittered on to my parents about how disgraceful it was that my sister had not moved in with them to help with looking after my mum. Despite her calling everyday, visiting every other day and cooking every three days, they all felt she could have done more. Did not help that mum had not been strong enough to verbally retaliate nor have the strength to say to my sister that she did not give a rat's ass as to what this minority group of plebs believed, nor did it help that my dad said nothing at all due to his nature of wanting to avoid any kind of conflict!!
Quite honestly in quite a large proportion of Bangladeshi communities, be it in England or in Bangladesh, the entire family tends to stand together and support one another under the same roof, so when my sister and I bucked the trend by adopting the best of the East and the West - the cultural beliefs of both cultures whilst filtering off the nonsense which meant both her and I had learnt how to speak, read and write Bengali, enjoyed Bollywood films to the max, knew all the essential prayers to practice Islam but we also married outside of the community, learnt how to love and appreciate other cultures and had become fiercely independent and moved out and away from our parents - some people didn't like that at all as it gave their children ideas of independence and free thought which was not necessarily a good thing! Don't get me wrong - this was not a majority opinion but my sister just could not bear to take the continuing flack now that mum had gone hence, so the thought that I had volunteered to become the first line of defence now she liked a lot. A lot indeed!
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