This piece was published by the JMWW journal on 09/11/2018. Click here to read more.
For two years, my sister sterilized white gauze pieces in a pressure cooker to pack our father’s two-inch-deep bedsores. She shaved his face. Trimmed his nails and hair. Extracted gunk from his gums. Wiped and powdered his bottom. Inserted jelly-lubricated catheters while his fingers dug into her arm. Emptied brown, urine-filled bags.
When the time came for his burial, she heated water for his last bath. Then, she was led aside. Giving a bath to a body before burial is honorable and rewarding: anyone who does so receives an erasure of 40 major sins from their record. Yet Islam permits only males to wash a male body, she was told. My brothers and male cousins took over.
“They don’t know how crumbs collect in the folds of skin under his neck,” she kept on saying as aunts gathered her in their embraces.