Searching for Solace

Mia Warren (MW): This is A Better Life? from Feet in 2 Worlds, a podcast where we explore how immigrant communities are impacted by the pandemic. I’m Mia Warren.

Losing a loved one is painful, but during Covid, the experience has become so much harder. Health and social distancing restrictions have limited goodbyes in hospitals and required tiny funerals.

It’s especially difficult in communities where large funerals are a tradition. People weren’t able to come together to mourn.

This was the case for Ismaili Muslims. In Atlanta’s large Ismaili Muslim community, Covid restrictions made it impossible to practice traditional rituals around death and dying. Healing was delayed for many families. And for some, it’s led to questions about the choices they made in their lives.

Zulekha Nathoo has our story.

Zulekha Nathoo (ZN): Jasmine Jiwani kneels at her husband’s gravestone at a cemetery in Lawrenceville, Georgia. She never thought, coming to America from East Africa a decade ago, that it would come to this.

Jasmine Jiwani: We came here for fulfilling our dreams, our future life. But when these things happen, then we regret that. Why did we came here?

ZN: The 34-year-old mother of two lays a row of single stem red roses on her husband’s grave.

Jasmine: It’s still really hard. It’s been a year but still, it’s hard for me. It’s not easy at all.

ZN: To understand the kind of year it has been for Jasmine, she invites me to her house, about 10 minutes away in the Atlanta suburb of Lilburn. We sit in her living room and she shows me pre-pandemic photos of her husband, Asif Parbatani. A family trip to Niagara Falls. Her daughter perched on Asif’s shoulders. A selfie of Jasmine and Asif with an animated bunny filter. That one makes her smile.

Jasmine:  When I wake up, I see his face on photos. I have one in my bedroom and pictures. When the day starts, I start with that. Looking at him.

ZN: She says her husband Asif was the kind of guy who always made sure she was eating enough and getting enough sleep. Asif was the kind of dad who would change diapers, and play silly games with his kids in Hindi and English. 

In a home video taken last year, Asif, a stocky man with an easy smile, can be seen blowing bubbles from a can as his kids try to catch them. In another, he’s racing his daughter in the backyard, holding a spoon in his mouth with a lemon on it.

After emigrating from Uganda about 10 years ago, he worked as a wholesale grocery supplier. When the pandemic hit, he stayed home from work and wore a mask when he returned.

Jasmine says her husband never complained about a headache or fever. So when he did, Jasmine knew she should take him to the hospital. Once there, the doctors just sent him home, saying it was nothing serious.

But he didn’t get better.

Jasmine:  I took him again to the hospital and he got admitted. And there they said that he’s Covid positive. And though the doctor said and the nurse said he is very strong, he is having no pre-existing medical condition. So within two to three days, he will be discharged.

ZN: That didn’t happen. He stayed in the hospital for two weeks. 

Normally clean-shaven, his beard grew thicker over time. His condition got worse. Doctors put Asif on a ventilator. He had developed a fistula, or an abnormal passage, in his lungs. It got so big, it became inoperable.

Multiple tubes were coming out of his throat and he was sedated most of the time. Three weeks later, a nurse, heard here, delivered news no family member wants to hear. 

Clip: (Nurse over the phone) “Unfortunately, it looks like his lungs, um, aren’t doing better.”

ZN: Jasmine was also recovering from Covid herself and taking care of two kids. So, her brother would sometimes be the one to answer calls from the hospital, he’s on the other end for this one. He’d record them so Jasmine could listen and try to process the disheartening information afterwards.

Clip: (Nurse over the phone) “There’s nothing they can do. So I think this is going to be a tough situation.”

Jasmine: They said me that he was not able to survive because of his lungs. That was completely damaged. So they said, no, he wouldn’t be able to survive. 

I can’t explain those in words, but that was a very, very saddest moment for me.

ZN: The hospital said she and her family could come to say their goodbyes.

This would be the first time Jasmine would see her husband face-to-face since he’d been admitted more than a month ago.

It would also be the last.

Jasmine: That was the only day. That was the only single day that we were able to. They allowed us only one day and one time that you can come and visit him.  

He was awake and I tried to talk to him and like I ask him, are you like, one day he was saying, he was saying to the nurse that I want to write something. So the nurse gave the pen and the paper, but he was too weak, so he was not able to write those things. So when I read this, I ask, “Asif, what do you want to write? Are you worried of something? Are you worried about me? Are you worried about your parents or are you worried about your kids?” 

So he—he’s just shakes his head that, no, I’m not worried about anyone, but I ask, do you trust me that I can take care of everyone? He said yes. Then I ask, like, do you trust me that I can take care of myself? He said no. That’s the thing.

ZN: So do you think what he wanted to write was something to you?

Jasmine:  Yeah, I feel that. Because he knew that I don’t take care of myself. That’s the only thing.

ZN: Mothers never do.

Jasmine: Yeah, mothers never do.

ZN: As a mother and wife, Jasmine realized she was now also the sole decision-maker in the family. And her next decision would be the hardest she’d have to make.

Jasmine: To let him go, we needed to close the ventilator. So the doctor asked me that, if you want, you can stay here and let him go in front of you. I said, I won’t be able to do that.

ZN: Instead, she asked if the doctors would remove the ventilator at 7:30 that evening. That time has special significance. Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, her faith group, believe strongly in the power of congregation and typically recite evening prayers around that time. Even though people couldn’t gather physically, Jasmine hoped the common prayer time would help put her husband’s soul to rest.

By July of 2020, when Asif died, Covid infections in the U.S. were rising in many areas. At that time, almost 3,000 people had died from the virus in Georgia. New restrictions for putting loved ones to rest augmented the grief. Muslim burials usually happen fairly quickly after death. Normally, they involve large gatherings to pay final respects. But due to the Covid restrictions, that couldn’t happen anymore. Funerals had to be significantly limited.

To get an idea of just how fundamental these burial rituals are in the Muslim faith, I went to see Dr. Gulshan Harjee. She’s a well-known part of this Ismaili community and works with them regularly, often supporting people through their losses.

Dr. Gulshan Harjee:  In the Ismaili community and actually in the Islamic faith, we are encouraged to go to funerals. Even if you don’t know the person, the fact that there is a funeral you are encouraged to go because there is sawaab in it.

ZN: In Islam, sawaab means spiritual reward for having done a good deed.

Dr. Harjee spends most of her days at this busy free clinic she co-founded in Clarkston, a suburb of Atlanta. Patients here live at least 200 per cent below the federal poverty level.

Dr. Harjee: See Clarkston, because it’s mostly immigrants, refugees, unemployed or marginalized community, they are frontline workers. They are mostly frontline workers. So they work in farms and poultry and they are Uber drivers, taxi drivers, bus drivers. And so, we were seeing a lot of Covid.

ZN: As infections spread, gathering places of all kinds had to shut down. That included Ismaili places of worship, called Jamatkhanas, which closed across the U.S. Early morning and evening prayer services, a sanctuary for congregants, had to stop.

Funerals, which normally are attended by hundreds, sometimes thousands, as a source of comfort and closure, were limited to no more than ten masked people. Other significant traditions, from food offerings to consoling family post-burial, had to be done virtually or not at all.

People no longer had an outlet for their grief.

Dr. Harjee: One thing I did do, was I got on FaceTime with them. And I told them that I’m speaking to you, not as your doctor, but I’m speaking to you as a friend.

ZN: When people no longer had access to the comfort they’d get from the congregation, Dr. Harjee found herself doubling as both a physician and therapist of sorts. After working long hours, she’d join grieving faith members on Zoom or Facetime to listen, console and recite the salwat, a Muslim prayer for blessings, protection and salvation.

Dr. Harjee: During periods of grief, we say the salwat. And so, the more people there are, the more salwat you’re giving, the more chanting you send to the deceased. And we believe that’s their ticket to heaven. I think the Ismaili community felt a loss in that manner.

ZN: There’s another reason, though, that people turned to Dr. Harjee.

The mother of two lost her first husband in a mass shooting in Atlanta in 1999. She knows their pain firsthand, as well as the solace that can come through grieving collectively.

Dr. Harjee: I remember when my husband was killed twenty-five years ago, it felt like the whole city was there. And I know that I didn’t know all of them. But the fact that they were all there, you know, gave me comfort. 

For us, as Ismailis, being together as a community is very important. Not being able to go to the Jamatkhana, which is our center of prayer, and do all the rituals was a big loss. It is closure actually, it’s the Islamic way of bringing closure to the whole, you know, sense of loss.

ZN: The Jamatkhana in Decatur, Georgia is a center for prayer, meditation, celebration and mourning for the Ismaili community in Atlanta. A fountain trickles outside, which also masks the street noise nearby.

Ismailis makeup one of the largest branches of Shia Islam and are guided by an Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan. Thousands live in the Atlanta area. Emigration from Asia and Africa largely began in the 1970s, often to escape political conflicts, persecution and poverty. 

This Decatur Jamatkhana was the first permanent building of its kind built in the United States, more than 30 years ago. A symbol that this immigrant community is here to stay.

Now that the prayer hall is open again after Covid restrictions were relaxed, I go inside to learn more. 

I’m joined by Behnoosh Momin.

Behnoosh Momin: Grieving the loss of a loved one during the anxiety and fear of a pandemic can be overwhelming.

ZN: She’s a volunteer member of the Ismaili Council, the leadership team for the southeastern United States. There are five Jamatkhanas in the Atlanta area and many others across the country. All of which were closed last year because of Covid.

Momin says the community banded together in other ways, making masks for health care workers and setting up vaccination drives, but the pandemic denied them what they needed most: the ability to be together.

Momin: Our faith is one that allows for not only spiritual contemplation but the opportunity to come together, to communicate, to support one another. And to not have that was definitely a challenge.

ZN: A challenge Jasmine would face when she buried her husband.

Jasmine:  It was like no one expected that thing, that this should happen to us or this should happen to our family members. We feel that everyone should come and pray for his soul. And like we were only ten members over there and like only me, my kids and my siblings were there. I was like, if everyone were there, that would be like many people praying for his soul. So that would be more better, instead of only us. But that was also heartbreaking to me. But we had no options due to pandemic.

ZN: Dr. Harjee, who runs the non-profit clinic we visited earlier, says it can make it harder to heal for those left behind.

Dr. Harjee: I think that always sticks with you. That’s something you always remember when you think about a family member you lost, and that so many people could not attend the funeral. In our communities, family members come from all over the world to attend a funeral. You know, that’s a very important last respect you want to give a family member who is deceased. And not being able to travel and attend and be there is a big loss. And all you can do is get on Zoom and have prayer sessions and have as many rituals as you can do.

ZN: Jasmine says she relied heavily on Zoom, FaceTime, and phone calls to pray together with family. It’s helped her a little with healing, she says, but she knows it’s a different story for her kids.

Jasmine: My little one, he was not even two years, so he didn’t know anything that what happened to his dad. My daughter, yes, she was nine years. So like, she never showed me any tears. Until now, it’s been a year. She never showed me any tears. But whenever she is emotional, she goes in a bathroom and she cries. And when she come back I can see her eyes are red and her tears. I can feel that she was crying, but she never showed me those things.

ZN: She doesn’t want to cry in front of you, is that why?

Jasmine: Yes. She doesn’t want to cry.

ZN: As we’re talking in the living room, her daughter, Ayaana, comes into the kitchen looking for a snack.

Ayaana: Hi.

ZN: Her mom asks if she wants to say anything about her father.

Jasmine: You can try Ayanna if you want?

Ayaana: No, no, no.

ZN: Ayanna says no and rushes out of the room.

Jasmine: She is also grieving and she was a daddy’s girl. So she is always missing her dad.

ZN: The burden of grief is clearly immense, and so is the financial one. When her husband died Jasmine didn’t have health insurance.

Jasmine: I got a bill of million-dollar.

ZN: She shows it to me. There it is, a charge for nine hundred, forty-one thousand, fifty-two dollars, and 66 cents. Addressed to her late husband.

Legislation under the CARES Act says health care providers can bill the federal government for Covid-related treatment when patients are uninsured. Jasmine hasn’t received a notice from the hospital since and is hoping that means the law applies to her, but she’s not sure.

Jasmine: Right now we didn’t paid any money. Of course, even though if there was no law, there was no chance that I had a million-dollar with me where I can pay that bill.

ZN: The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, offered funeral assistance to those who lost loved ones to Covid. Jasmine didn’t need it. She didn’t have health insurance, but she did invest in burial insurance.

Back at the cemetery, Jasmine says she’s not sure what she would have done without the Ismaili community behind her. Even if most of the support had to be remote, it was there. And that mattered.

ZN: Are there a lot of Ismailis buried in the cemetery?

Jasmine: Yes, there are many.

ZN: Jasmine says she used to come here a lot. She points to the headstones of some of the others in the Ismaili community she knows who also died of Covid.

When a body is buried in the Ismaili faith, loved ones are discouraged from visiting the cemetery too frequently. The reason? It’s just a body. The soul has long departed. Jasmine was visiting her husband’s grave so often last year that her parents told her she needed to stop. Prolonging the attachment only prolongs the suffering, they said.

A couple of balloons sit next to her husband’s grave. She had brought them when she came last week with the kids. They’ve since deflated. People sometimes burn incense and pour water on top of the graves, which is thought to settle the dirt and allow plants to grow. These small rituals, which could be done outdoors during the pandemic, brought her a small sense of comfort.

Jasmine: I have in my car, incense, lighter, and the water every time. So whenever I feel that I’m not OK, I come over here.

ZN: After a roller-coaster year of fear and relief, hardship and resilience, Jamatkhanas re-opened over the summer. Jasmine’s daughter is back in school. Life should be getting back to normal, and yet Jasmine’s is anything but.

While her financial debt from Covid might be forgiven, it’s the emotional debt she still carries, da- in and day-out. And questions still linger in these quiet moments.

Jasmine: I still think, like, what is going to happen? How am I going to take care of my kids alone?

ZN: As Jasmine stands over her husband’s grave, she closes her eyes, and prays the answers will come.

MW: This story was produced by Zulekha Nathoo.

A Better Life?’s executive producer is Quincy Surasmith. Jocelyn Gonzales is our technical director. Our editor is John Rudolph. Alejandro Salazar Dyer is our director of marketing. And Katelynn Laws is our intern.  

Our theme music and original score are by Fareed Sajan.

A Better Life? comes to you from Feet in 2 Worlds. Since 2005, Feet in 2 Worlds has been telling the stories of today’s immigrants and training immigrant journalists. The Feet in 2 Worlds network includes hundreds of reporters and editors. Some, like me, have been Feet in 2 Worlds fellows. Others have attended our workshops and contributed to our podcast and website. Together, we’re making American journalism more reflective of the diverse communities that we serve. 

To hear other episodes in this series, or to read more about the story you just heard, visit us at abetterlifepodcast.com. 

I’m Mia Warren. Thanks for listening. 

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