GRIEF THROUGH A SCREEN

Three days. That’s all it took for pandemic to take my father — a dedicated doctor who healed others until his final breath. I watched through a pixelated phone screen from thousands of miles away as the virus quietly stole his face, his voice and finally, his life. There was no final embrace. No whispered prayers at his bedside. No funeral I could attend. Only the crushing silence of a quiet apartment and the dull, constant buzz of a phone delivering updates I could do nothing about.

Five days later, the crescent moon appeared in the sky. The world prepared for Eid with lights, food and joy. I prepared a broken smile for a video call with my mother, now a widow. "Next Eid, I’ll come home," I had promised after so many years of being away. Every Eid, his voice would soften with longing and hope: “Next year, daughter?” That year, I had finally said yes. But God had other plans.

There was no space for private grief. Soon came the whispers from relatives and community members: “No son? Who will handle the arrangements? The house will have to be sold.” As though my mother, a strong survivor and we — her daughters — were not capable. We became what patriarchy fears most: women who do not disappear quietly.

Grief did not come gently. It was messy, loud and disorienting. And it rewired me. The daughter who once tiptoed around difficult conversations now burns with questions and demands answers. The woman who once pleased others now speaks with a new resolve. Why must the grieving also fight for basic compassion?

I found anchors. Friends who brought food without asking, who stayed on calls without words. Strangers in bereavement groups who became lantern holders in the longest nights of my life. I kept my father alive in the small rituals — cooking his favourite recipes with my child, writing him letters that he'll never read but my soul needed to send.

I set sacred boundaries. I said no to the relatives who urged me to “move on” or “stay strong.” Instead, I embraced therapy, faith and every complicated, conflicting emotion that came with loss. I learned that grief is not something you fix. It’s something you carry. You don’t “move on.” You move “with” them — into every fight for justice, every act of kindness. That’s how you continue.

To those still drowning in grief, staring at their phones, aching for one last message — your pain is real. Your timeline is your own. Though the world stole your goodbye, it did not steal the love. It did not steal the memories. It did not steal their lasting imprint on you.

Now, four years later, I stand at my father’s grave. The earth has settled, but my heart still trembles. The scars have not faded, but they have transformed. Where loss once cut sharply, quiet resilience has taken root.

When India’s devastating second wave of pandemic swept through the country, hospitals turned into corridors of despair. There was no oxygen. No dignity. My mother survived only because we moved her across state lines, decisions made in frantic midnight calls, while I remained abroad — helpless, endlessly refreshing my phone. Technology gave me front-row seats to heartbreak, but also to strength I never knew existed.