The Family We Leave Behind
Words by Janhavi Gosavi (she/her)
My grandmother lives inside my phone screen.
She waddles across the tile flooring of her flat in Mumbai, yelling out to tell everyone who’s home that I’m on the call. I get passed around my different family members. We tell each other how we are, what we ate that day, and what time it is, where we are. Everyone projects their voices as if they’re physically yelling across oceans. It never fails to make me laugh.
My little cousins have a set script they recite, in which they begrudgingly ask me what I’m doing and when I plan on visiting them. In turn, I make fun of their haircuts and show them pictures of my pet rabbits. It feels like an even trade.
The phone eventually makes its way back to my grandmother, who sneaks me into her bedroom. Her tone of voice shifts, indicating that I should sit up straight and listen. Buried inside her closet, behind rows of sarees and dusty photo albums, are bundles of cash that no one else knows about. She has been stashing away spare notes for years, saving up for when I return to India. “Make a list,” she instructs me, “of everything you’ve ever wanted, and when you’re back, we’ll buy it all.” My family stopped sending me birthday presents a while ago, and I can hear the guilt in her voice. She has years of catching up to do.
My uncle was the only one who insisted on getting me birthday presents even after my age hit double digits. He was the kind of uncle who drew moustaches on my dolls and laughed when I cried over my Tamagotchi dying. Every year, he would send me his credit card details and force me to order something off the internet. Moonstone rings, fandom merch, Pandora bracelet charms. Childish trinkets scattered across my room, physical reminders that on the other side of the world, I had a family who cared.
He passed away at the end of my first year of university.
My parents flew back for the funeral, and I was left to fathom the loss of a man I hadn’t laid eyes on in years. They brought me back his favourite tee shirt, worn out and with a tacky design on it. I paired it with jeans and low-top sneakers, wearing it to class and wondering if anyone would make a snarky comment.
But why would anyone care that he died when they never knew he existed?
I don’t talk about my extended family much because most days they don’t feel real. I tell people my parents and I moved to Aotearoa when I was two, and no one asks follow-up questions. There is an assumption that first-generation immigrants accept the cost of uprooting their lives for greener pastures; that we pay this cost gladly, without remorse.
I miss everything.
Kulfi, mangoes, fresh mutton, street chaat. The smell of talcum powder. The howling of street dogs fighting at night, sending a chill down my spine. My grandfather bringing home fresh coconuts for me every day.
I miss everything.
Birthdays, funerals, anniversaries, divorces, droughts, monsoons. Countless milestones I haven’t borne witness to.
When I call my family and hear them laughing without me, I can’t tell if I left them behind or if they left me.
I imagine myself as an island. Separated from the mainland by natural disaster, some cruel twist of fate. Resigned to floating aimlessly across the antipodes.
It’s easier to pretend your family line starts with you, that you are some trailblazing revolutionary, the matriarch of a future dynasty. It's harder to admit that you are a small part of a very large puzzle. Especially when you feel like a disposable corner piece, the image still intact without you.
A few summers ago, I looked out from the summit at Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of Aotearoa. There stood a lighthouse to my left, an ancient pohutukawa to my right, and an endless horizon of possibility in the middle. In te ao Māori, Cape Reinga is the point of departure where wairua Māori leave Aotearoa to make the journey back to Hawaiki.
In that moment, I had never felt closer nor further away from my ancestors. I try to not dwell on my whakapapa because it hurts. Te ao Māori affirms that your ancestors are waiting for you, but I’m not sure if mine even know where I am. Like a child who had moved houses before Christmas, worried Santa won’t be able to find their chimney, I’m also worried I won’t be found. After I depart this life, my spirit won’t be leaping off Cape Reinga.
I just hope she can island-hop her way home.