The things we cannot see
By Nahrizul Adib Kadri
A few days ago, while I was settling into my office at UM Press, my secretary sent me a WhatsApp message.
“Prof, gentle reminder. Meeting with the Faculty of Law management at 2.30 pm today to discuss the faculty’s book publishing strategy.”
I replied with a simple, “Noted. Thanks.”
The rest of the day unfolded very much as expected. There were emails waiting to be answered, manuscripts to review, a couple of phone calls in between, and, of course, the meeting itself. We discussed publishing plans, possible book titles and series (and a co-publication opportunity with an international publisher), timelines and the kinds of manuscripts that might interest a wider (non-law) audience. Tea and sandwiches were served. I cracked a joke that made everyone laugh. Before long, the meeting ended and everyone hurried off to the next appointment waiting in their calendars. If you had walked into the room that afternoon, you probably would not have noticed anything unusual about me. I doubt anyone else in the room did either.
It had only been nineteen days since Mak passed away.
Even writing that sentence now feels strangely unreal. Nineteen days is hardly enough time for life to make sense again, yet it is apparently long enough for meetings to resume, emails to keep arriving, and WhatsApp reminders to continue appearing on the screen as though nothing has changed. Students still submitting their appeals for next semester’s accommodation, even if the deadline has long gone. Television producers and newspaper editors still call. Authors still ask when their books will be ready. The supermarket still runs out of the brand of Greek yoghurt we normally buy. Life, it seems, is remarkably consistent in continuing with its ordinary routines.
I have come to realise that this is not life being insensitive. It is simply life doing what it has always done. The calendar does not know that we are grieving. The clock does not pause because someone we love is no longer here. Every new day quietly arrives, asking only for the next small thing. Another meeting appears on the calendar, another email lands in the inbox, another manuscript needs editing, and another drive to work begins. Somewhere along the way, without ever making a conscious decision, we begin answering those requests one by one.
That afternoon, I genuinely enjoyed the discussion with our colleagues from the Faculty of Law. We exchanged ideas, debated publishing strategies and laughed together more than once. None of it felt forced, and none of it felt like I was pretending to be someone I was not. It has taken me a little while to understand that it is entirely possible to miss someone deeply and still find something genuinely funny. It is possible to carry grief into a meeting without making the meeting about grief. Those experiences do not cancel each other out. They simply learn to exist within the same ordinary day.
The experience also made me wonder how often we misread the people around us. We see someone smiling and assume life must be treating them kindly. We hear a cheerful voice on the telephone and imagine everything is going well. We watch a colleague confidently chair a meeting and conclude that they have everything under control. Yet we rarely know what someone carried into the room before greeting us. The young colleague having teh ais across the table may still be learning how to leave a toxic relationship behind. The receptionist who cheerfully says good morning may be worrying about an elderly parent. The Grab driver asking about your day may have a child sitting for examinations. Or perhaps the person discussing book publishing strategies with you buried the only mother he will ever have just nineteen days earlier.
The older I become, the less convinced I am that strength is something we can recognise from the outside. Many of the strongest people I know never speak about what they are carrying. They continue showing up because other people are depending on them, because responsibilities still need to be fulfilled, or simply because they understand that everyone else is carrying something unseen as well. What looks like composure is often nothing more than quiet perseverance, repeated one ordinary day after another.
Tomorrow morning another WhatsApp reminder will almost certainly appear before I have finished my first cup of coffee. I will probably reply, “Noted. Thanks,” just as I always do, before getting on with another ordinary day. The work will continue, the meetings will continue, and so, I suspect, will life itself. Mak has already left me with many gifts over the years, but perhaps this is one more that I never expected.
Some of the heaviest things people carry are also the things we cannot see.
The author is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, the Director of UM Press, and the Principal of Tuanku Bahiyah Residential College (KK2), Universiti Malaya. He may be reached at nahrizuladib@um.edu.my