When some die
there are pictures in social media
When others die, there is nothing
Life goes on
And I wonder how people pick sides
and say that "oh, she was like that,
or "the suffering is now over"
When over and over, the one who died
was a person you never knew
and visitors to the home saw just as someone,
an old woman
a bundled form on a settee somewhere
that folks asked after with cousins and siblings
Is she okay, is she here with us
But some of us remember a few important things
a name, a person
and a memory that when I passed my grade 10 exam
She had taken me shopping
to buy me fabric for a salwar khameez
soft white cloth with small brown and red flowers
a summer cloud of a dupatta
generous, it had mattered a lot then
When some die, there are pictures in social media
When others die, there is nothing
No one dies in obscurity
Just because they aren't celebrated publicly
and people shift their feet
they do live on as quiet memories
in the minds of those who knew them
a little
August 11th (c)
