A TRIBUTE
The NaNa Who Cried Wolf
For the patriarch we thought we’d always have
There is a particular kind of grief that arrives wrapped in guilt — the grief of someone you loved so completely, but never really showed, never really let them know. The grief of someone you let yourself believe was permanent. NaNa called. He always called. And somewhere along the way, I let those calls become background, knowing he was there and that I would always have his voice to listen to. I’d pick up the phone, set it on speaker, and move through my world while his voice filled the room. I heard him, but now I will never hear “him” again.
That is the thing about people who love you without condition — they show up so reliably that you start to take the showing up for granted. He was the patriarch. The constant. The one who had already survived every scare, every close call, every moment we held our breath. He had outlived most of his siblings. He had endured the kind of grief that breaks most people — the untimely loss of his own daughter and son-in-law, a weight no parent should ever have to carry. And still, he carried it. Still, he showed up. He had cried wolf so many times — or so I told myself — that I stopped bracing for the worst and ultimately, thought to myself that he was immortal. I thought I had learned that he was unbreakable. How could someone who had survived so much, lost so much, and kept going — how could he not be?
As his first grandchild, I carried a particular pride and closeness with NaNa — the kind forged in those early years before the family grew, when Adeel and I were the first granddaughter and grandson, and the world as he knew it still had room enough to hold us completely. I was the one who came first, who he held first, who first made him NaNa. And perhaps that is why, somewhere deep down, I believed his permanence most fiercely of all. He had always been there — he had always been there for me, in ways that went far beyond presence.
Part of that certainty came from a running joke we shared as a family. NaNa went to the hospital periodically — enough times that we stopped treating it as a point of immediate concern and started treating it as routine. We’d laugh and say he was just going in for a “maintenance check”, that he’d be back soon, refreshed and recharged, good as new. It sounds cavalier now, but it was really just our way of loving him through fear. It was easier to joke than to sit with the possibility that one day he wouldn’t come back. And every single time, he proved us right. He always came back.
“Foolish of me, to confuse someone’s will to live with immunity from leaving.”
This time last week, I was packing a bag for New Jersey. Mother’s Day weekend. A trip to be with Ami, a chance to be close to my siblings, nieces and nephew, ordinary in the best possible way. I was not packing to say goodbye. I was not prepared to return home as someone who had lost the foundation of our family. The thought never crossed my mind — not seriously, not really — because NaNa was just there. He had always been there. Now I sit with the weight of all the conversations I half-attended. The calls I let run to voicemail and returned later. The questions I forgot to ask. The stories I let trail off without asking him to finish them. I know, somewhere deeper than guilt, that love was never in question between us. But knowing that doesn’t dissolve the ache of realizing what I left unsaid — what we both left unsaid — in all that ordinary time.
What I read in his tributes, in every word written in his memory, is a man who was far more present for others than I gave him credit for in those distracted moments. He checked in because he meant it. He called because I mattered. And I — half-listening, half-elsewhere — let those moments slip through my hands like they were renewable. Like there would always be another call.
“There will not be another call. And somehow, I have to learn to live inside that silence.”
NaNa, I am sorry I put you on speaker. I am sorry I thought we had more time. I am sorry I confused your resilience for immortality, and your steadiness for something I could always return to later. You were not a story I could pause and come back to. You were a person — irreplaceable, and mine — and I did not treat every moment like the gift it was.
But I also know this: you knew I loved you. The calls kept coming because you believed in me more than I showed up for you. That is the kind of man you were — patient, constant, reaching out even when the reach wasn’t always met halfway. You were my NaNa, and I was your first grandchild, and nothing will ever undo the particular grace of that bond. I carry that love now. I will carry it better than I held it before.
Rest well, NaNa. The angels finally came and none of us were ready. But I was yours — your first, always, even in the distracted, foolish, human way that I was. I hope that counts for something. I have to believe it does.
Written in grief, guilt, love, and gratitude — for the patriarch of our family.
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