As this post is published my mother, Tahera Rashid, is being laid to rest in Bangladesh.

In Islam, burial takes place soon after death. While I cannot be there in person, I find comfort in reflecting on the remarkable life she lived—as a pioneer, educator, journalist, mother, grandmother, and a woman who was far ahead of her time.

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that comes from watching someone you love disappear slowly through a screen.

Every time my phone rang and my mother’s face appeared on FaceTime from Bangladesh, I braced myself. I searched her face for signs of stability, hoping to see glimpses of the woman I had always known. Instead, I watched illness, aging, and distance take over in ways I could not stop.

For the past few years, dialysis kept my mother alive. It gave us more time—more conversations, more memories, more chances to say what mattered. For that time, I will always be grateful.

But I also witnessed what it cost her body. Her strength faded. Her energy declined. In recent months, she required a feeding tube as her body could no longer sustain itself. Seeing her in that state—fragile, dependent on machines—was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced.

And now, she is gone.

My mother passed away surrounded by love in her final chapter. Even in loss, there is relief in knowing she is no longer suffering.

I still find myself reaching for the phone sometimes, as if there will be another FaceTime call. As if there is more time.

There is a particular grief in losing someone you were not physically close to at the end, yet emotionally tethered to every day.

What made this even more complex was the reality I was living in at the same time: I am also the mother of an infant. As my mother’s health deteriorated, Bangladesh was experiencing a serious measles outbreak. I found myself caught between two identities that define me—daughter and mother—trying to decide how to show up for both in a world that made it impossible to fully do either.

Through all of this, I am endlessly grateful for my brother. He spent the past year in Bangladesh caring for our mother with extraordinary devotion. He carried the weight of daily caregiving, often away from his own daughters, ensuring she was never alone and always cared for. I will carry his sacrifice with me for the rest of my life.

A Life Before Illness

As I reflect on my mother, I do not only see the final months of illness. I see the fullness of her life—and who she was long before she became sick.

My mother was ahead of her time for a woman born in what was then East Pakistan, later Bangladesh. She carried ambition, curiosity, intelligence, and a deep sense of purpose that shaped every chapter of her life.

She attended St. Benedict’s College in Minnesota in the 1970s, something rare for women from her background at the time. She was among the first women selected for the ANZ Grindlays Bank management track. She worked as a journalist writing for Dialogue and read the English news on the radio in Dhaka, her voice reaching listeners in a young nation finding its identity.

Later, in the United States, she became an educator working with children with disabilities, bringing compassion, patience, and belief to children who were too often overlooked.

She was not only my mother. She was a working woman, a communicator, an educator, and a pioneer in her own quiet way. Throughout her life, she consistently pushed against the limitations placed on women of her generation.

She came from a family of strong women, and she made sure I knew their stories. Growing up, she often told me about the remarkable women who shaped our lineage and worldview. She spoke proudly of Begum Rokeya, the pioneering feminist whose advocacy for women’s education helped transform generations of Bengali women.

She also made sure I spent time with my Zeba Nani, my great-aunt, whether she was pursuing one of her business ventures or leading the Blue Birds, the British equivalent of the Girl Scouts. Those visits were never just family visits. They were lessons.

Through the women in our family, my mother showed me that women could lead organizations, build careers, start businesses, and define success for themselves. Looking back, I can see how much those examples shaped my own ambitions and willingness to challenge expectations.

I remember when my mother was the editor of a magazine called Adam and Eve. She had written an article on an aerobics workout and had my Polly Auntie pose for the feature—an innocent moment that later became complicated when my aunt became worried about her in-laws seeing it. I still remember my mother, my brother, and me staying up late with a black marker, carefully crossing out her face in every copy, trying to “fix” it before anyone could see.

I also remember our trips to Hong Kong before the handover from the British to China. We were mesmerized—the Toys “R” Us, the Star Ferry, the food, the feeling of being in a place on the edge of change. My mother had planned for us to return after the handover, once Hong Kong had transitioned to Chinese rule, but life moved forward and we never made it back.

Some of my favorite memories are of watching my mother prepare for Marine Corps Balls during my childhood. She would carefully get ready for the evening, elegant and confident, while being escorted by my Fahmi Mama—on the rare occasion he traded his beloved shorts for a suit and tie—or by my Rauman Mama.

As a child, it all seemed glamorous. Looking back now, I see a woman who moved comfortably between Bangladesh and America, tradition and modernity, family and career.

I also remember our outings as children to the tea estates with my Jame Mama and Shayan Mama. My brother and I would run freely across the estates, inventing games, pretending to play pool, and living in a world that felt wide open and full of possibility. On one trip, when my parents were still together, I remember sitting in the car with my mother while the men went hunting. It is a small memory, but one that has stayed with me.

More than anything, my mother made sure we stayed connected to family. She nurtured relationships with cousins and extended relatives, and those bonds became part of our foundation. Years later, as teenagers, those same cousins looked out for us—especially during New Year’s Eve gatherings when we were undoubtedly up to no good. Those relationships became one of her most enduring gifts to us: a sense of belonging that extended beyond our immediate home.

I remember our trips to Bangkok before COVID, when we reconnected and created memories I will hold onto forever.

I remember summers in her Montrose apartment in Houston, where she opened my world in ways I only fully understood later. Long before these conversations were common, she introduced me to LGBTQI+ communities and taught me about HIV/AIDS. She taught me how to see people fully, without judgment.

I remember the everyday things too: teaching me how to cook before college, helping me prepare for school and life, and showing love in practical, steady ways that I only now recognize as profound.

She also passed down her love for dogs—something that remains with us today in the comfort and companionship of the animals we share our lives with.

Becoming a Daughter, Again

Our relationship was not always easy. There were years of distance and misunderstanding, shaped by pain I carried from childhood. We hurt each other in ways that took time to heal. But in recent years, especially as I became a mother myself, something shifted.

I began to see her differently—not only as my mother, but as a woman navigating life with her own history, ambition, sacrifices, and limitations, doing the best she could with what she had.

I wish I had understood that sooner.

In the end, I am grateful we found our way back to each other. Grateful for the laughter, the conversations, the trips, and the quiet moments of reconnection before time ran out.

Now she is gone. And I am learning how grief can hold contradictions—love and pain, regret and gratitude, memory and absence—all at once.

No matter how old we become, there is something profoundly difficult about losing a parent. But there is also something lasting in what they leave behind: the parts of them that live on in how we love, how we parent, and how we move through the world.

My mother is no longer here. But she is still with me—in memory, in lessons, and in a love that does not end with death.