I have a corner wooden shelf in our house that stores cutlery for ages. It’s modestly built, and for some weird reason, it is coloured rusted orange on the outside with wooden varnish inside.

My mother is very emotional about it, as it holds the remnant pieces of the dinner set her mother gave her for her marriage, dessert sets, and bone china plates designed with depth, best suited for relishing Hyderabadi khorma and sheermal, often cooked during Dada Abba’s and Dadi Ammi’s barsi.

The crockery sets are clocking four decades of survival, and yet my mom doesn’t want to discard them.

It took me an entire day to clean just these four historical wooden shelves.

Findings;

There were some interesting finds from the heaps of dust and cobwebs, each piece bringing back dfferent stories of the bygone days.

A set of dishes like a Matryoshka doll, from the biggest to the smallest, nestled one inside the other, was found, a gift to my mother by her students on Teacher’s Day.

And then there was a serving dish which my mother purchased from our domestic help, who was in dire need of money. I couldn’t believe why my mother purchased it from her when she could have just helped her anyway. My mother doesn’t remember the reason or the context.

Then, in one remote corner, I found various types of large, wide rice-serving thaals, of course, the countless times Biryanis were made and served in them.

I also discovered that we have a huge number of stainless steel utensils, tiffins of various shapes and sizes, cans and cannisters, so much so that I can contribute to someone’s dowry if stainless steel is still acceptable. I‘ve put them all in one corner and gave it a title,” The Steel Corner”.

I also found some very expensive tea sets and heaps of melamine plates and soup sets. This was part of my identity: I would splurge money on a whim and end up buying things I never needed in the first place. This junk reminded me of how much the trials of life tested me, taught me the best lessons in money management and made a better version of me who finally found where my worth is, at least not in the materialistic junk that I was holding.

I was extremely delighted with this epiphany, smiled and moved on to clean the last part of the wooden shelf

While cleaning the last portion, I stumbled upon a dinner set and many other pieces that I had purchased for my father, and some for the relationships that died along with him.

A lot of memories came flooding back, some pleasant and many not so pleasant. Holding one in my hand, I felt a profound shift in my emotional state. I looked at it and found the dust of time had settled on the pieces, and it may take several years to wipe it clean or perhaps forever!

I thought — Grief is like the dust that has collected on these items; with every passing year, another layer is added.

I ask myself — Will this ever heal?

I took a deep breath and paused for some time.

After a few hours’ break, I resumed my work and created a large number of items, separated into different piles, intended for giving away.

Then, from nowhere, I got reminded of a hadith I read in a charity-related article

where the Prophet ﷺ said after a sheep was distributed in charity

What is given away for Allah remains, and what was kept is what is actually “lost.”

Except for the steel corner, I gave away everything.

With hope and prayers that this giving away brings in another layer of healing to my complex Grief!

Warmly, Mehnaz Amjad.