I am leaving the world of reason. Already, I can see its horizon behind me. I can see the hopes and dreams I pinned on it - the hope to change the world, the hope to change the Baha'i community, the hope to find love, the hope to find a place of work and the hope to study - all subverted. Baha'u'llah says we are to detach from the world and live in his sanctuary of peace. I am on my way, even though I strain to pray, to meet him in his paradise. I can barely get myself out of bed sometimes, much less find it in me to reach out to him. I ask him for his grace and favour but feel a fraud. What right have I to ask for that?
You are with him now. Just last week, we were listening to this music together; now I listen to it here and you listen to it there, with him. What's he like to live with, that Big B? I've been trying to find a place with him for 10 years and still can't seem to settle down there. But lucky you, who've flown away and are lodged there for good. I know you'll like it there, mama. You were already there before you went. You left us to squabble over your body, but I didn't play. I know you are not your body and I let Jesus have the last say: let the dead bury the dead. Let that one control your body and your memory; one day he'll wake up and find your chalk bones have taken the shape of a dog. He stopped me grieving for you mama, but now that the funeral is over and the relatives are gone, I can get back to it. I can cry again.
My hair is falling out; you saw my half-bald head staring at you in your last days. Yesterday, though, I realised that I am growing a new adornment for my new world. In a couple of weeks, I will be 50 and 9 years expelled. I can't remember now what it was I was expelled from.
(My mother died on 10 March, at 2.00pm.)
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