Read Online Damascus Countdown by Joel C. Rosenberg - Free Book Online

was certain, had provided the closure the family really needed. To make matters worse, Mrs. Shirazi’s burial would have to wait until sometime in April or early May, since the ground at the cemetery was presently covered with too much snow and was far too cold and hard to dig a grave, all of which meant the family’s raw wounds would be subjected to even more pain in another few weeks when they essentially had to do this all over again.
    When the service was over, Dr. Shirazi had invited everyone back to his home. Indeed, he had insisted upon hosting three days of mourning for family and friends. This, it turned out, was an Islamic tradition, which Marseille found curious, since Dr. Shirazi was not a religious man, and neither were his wife or their sons. The Shirazis had long sinceabandoned Islam, but Marseille sensed that this ritual was far more about tradition than religion. This was about Dr. Shirazi operating on autopilot, doing what he had seen his parents do, and their parents before them, not trying to invent a new family tradition at a time like this. So she had followed everyone else over to the Shirazi house and offered to help serve food and run out for more ice and help in any other way she could. When she wasn’t needed, she just sat in the back of the living room and kept quiet, observing the people coming and going, and praying a lot, sometimes with her eyes open and sometimes with them closed.
    She observed that this was not really dissimilar from the tradition of her Jewish friends in Portland who sat shivah for seven days following the death of a loved one. There was something simple, even sweet, about sitting in a family’s living room, saying little or nothing, but just being near them, with them, around them while they grieved for their loved one and she grieved with them. Marseille found herself wishing it was a tradition her family had practiced after the death of her mother. It would have been good, Marseille thought, for her father to sit with friends for seven days and let himself cry and weep and mourn properly. She had been only fifteen then, but she was pretty sure her father had never mourned properly. He had certainly never been able to heal from the gaping wound in his heart. Losing a spouse was obviously different from losing a parent. But maybe sitting shivah—or whatever they called it in Islam—was a good thing to do in either case.
    “Loved ones and relatives are to observe a three-day mourning period,” read one website on Islamic death rituals that Marseille had looked up on her iPhone after the service. “Mourning is observed in Islam by increased devotion, receiving visitors and condolences, and avoiding decorative clothing and jewelry.”
    Marseille hadn’t wanted to sit around and “observe” everyone’s mourning, however. That’s why she’d offered to help as much as possible. She’d taken special care to make sure Dr. Shirazi had a fresh cup of Persian tea by his side at all times, with a little drop of honey stirred in, just the way he liked it. She’d helped set out and arrange the food people brought. She’d refilled buckets of ice and made pot after pot ofcoffee and tea. When she’d noticed that neither of the Shirazi sons were doing it, she had emptied the trash can under the sink in the kitchen, replaced it with a new Hefty bag, and taken the overflowing bag out to the can in the garage. She’d answered phone calls and taken messages when the Shirazi family members were busy. She’d washed dishes as needed and made sure there were enough forks and spoons and napkins available. Perhaps most importantly—or at least most usefully—she had continually refilled the Kleenex canisters strategically positioned all around the first floor.
    All the while, however, she tried to keep a low profile, acting more like the hired help than a friend of the family. She wanted to show her love to the Shirazis, but she didn’t want to presume to be part of the family.