Month of Joy: My Father by Ausma Zehanat Khan

My father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease several years ago. Unfortunately, his variant of the disease included symptoms of gradually worsening dementia. The tragic irony of this is that my father was a psychiatrist for whom mental health was a lifelong calling. When I was in high school casting about for projects to work on, my father would recommend that I shed light on issues such as depression, personality disorder, or addiction. He helped me with these projects, teaching me to grapple with all sides of an issue, but he made sure I understood that the well-being of the patient should be central.

This is just one of many reasons why he was an amazing father, and just one example of how deeply he shaped my character and worldview. I’m using the past tense to write about my father as he was before his dementia set in. It’s unsettling to do so, as my Dad is still alive and lives at home, under the devoted care of my mother. I don’t know what the right way to write about him is, the way that respects his dignity and history, along with what he represents to me. Any approach I try seems wrong, but to ignore who he is and who he was doesn’t seem right either, especially as I think about him all the time. Every day, I think of little things he said to me, notes he wrote me, lessons he taught me by his example.

The man he was isn’t the man he is now, as he’s lost most of his speech, lucidity and comprehension. I manage a visit home every three months, staying longer during the summer and Christmas breaks, and over the course of these visits, I’ve measured the progression of his dementia. First, he remembered everything and everyone, and simply had trouble with speech. Then he began to lose his more recent memories, while his memories of the past stayed sharp, and he would often talk about his life in India and Pakistan, before he migrated to England and then Canada.

My father was fluent in several languages, but he mainly spoke to his four children in English. As his memory began to fade, he reverted to his mother tongue of Urdu more and more. And as he was a devout Muslim, the last thing I saw him lose was his prodigious knowledge of Arabic, and the long passages of the Qur’an that he could recite from memory. Often, when my mother would want to do something to help him become alert, she would play a CD of his favorite verses, and his lips would move to accompany the recitation.

If he was shaken by some nightmare I couldn’t see, I would often sit with him and recite verses I knew would calm him. I would intersperse this with commentary about Federer and Nadal’s legendary rivalry because there was no bigger fan of tennis than my Dad. The only reason I still watch tennis now is so I can tell my Dad about matches I’ve seen when I go home to visit him. And once, in the early stages of the disease, when I wasn’t able to do it myself, my best friend took my Dad to watch Roger Federer play in the Roger’s Cup. (Best friends are indisputable sources of kindness and joy.)

I noticed something else, over time. Courtesy is so deeply ingrained in my father’s character, that even when he’s lost nearly all of his speech, whenever my mother does anything for him—from making his morning coffee, to rubbing cream into his skin, he looks up at her, focuses and says, “Thank you, jaana.” Jaana means ‘my love, my life.’ He’s always called my mother that.

The traditional greeting of peace—the salaam—to friends and family members was a cornerstone of his identity and was one of the last things to go. I miss that a lot. I miss calling him and hearing him say “salaam” on the phone. I miss the way he would enthusiastically embrace his friends when they offered him salaam. My father gave or returned that greeting with such genuine love and warmth that it lit up our whole house. One look at his face, the sound of his salaam, and you knew how much he loved you.

Now, when I enter my father’s house, I don’t hear his greeting, and I have to pause to absorb the silence. My Dad sits quietly in the family room listening to Urdu poetry or the film songs of his youth, rarely interacting with my mother, his children or his grandchildren, with only occasional signs of who he is or who he was to all of us.

This doesn’t seem like something that gives me joy, I know. And it certainly doesn’t capture who my father was—it’s just a snapshot of what he means to me. But what I’ve been holding onto is this. My father had a habit that I still cherish. When he would see me throughout the course of the day, he would say, “Hello, beti.” Beti means ‘daughter’ in Urdu. As he said it, his face would get soft and his green eyes—the eyes he gave me—would light up with love.

He’s had the disease for nine long years, and every year he knows me less. He knows my name, but he can’t speak it. But what he has said, and what he does say without fail, the instant he sees my face and I give him salaam…is “Hello, beti.”

His green eyes light up with recognition as they focus on mine, and I know he knows who I am. I know he recognizes his daughter. My father’s name is Zehanat and his birthday is Christmas day.

These are things that give me joy.

Ausma Zehanat Khan holds a Ph.D. in international human rights law with a specialization in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. A British-born Canadian and former adjunct law professor, Khan now lives in Colorado with her husband. She writes the award-winning Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery series, and the Khorasan Archives fantasy series. A Dangerous Crossing and The Black Khan are her latest books.

Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of The Black Khan

www.ausmazehanatkhan.com

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