'The dead leave empty spaces'

A year after the death of his beloved mother, the artist and writer Osman Yousefzada looks back on her zest for life and the comfort of community rituals

- OSMAN YOUSEFZADA

I was holding the belt and we were lowering her down. Mum was in her coffin.

There were two pairs of hands holding onto each of the four grey straps. We were her pall bearers: me, my elder brother, her nephews through marriage, and her cousin – her maternal uncle’s son. We slid the straps through the faux-metal handles on the oak coffin. I can’t remember if it was veneer or solid, but we began moving the wooden slats the casket had been sitting on. Mum was suspended now.

I was worried. I had recently hurt my shoulder, but had been doing exercises routinely, so when the time came my grip would be steady. She came to rest on a mixture of wet clay and pebbled stones. The sides of the chamber had been poured with concrete. There are two types of graves on offer in England. An earthen-dug grave we describe as a katchi kabar, and the other, a solid lined grave described as pakhi. Our preferred choice was the pakhi, a Hindustani/ Urdu word that crept into colonial speak.

I come from a caste of tribal carpenters and builders who make the homes of the Muslim dead in Pakistan. It is our gratis commitment to our community. Those graves are different: brick-lined, with a sealed inner chamber that would act as a coffin to hold the shrouded body. Here, in England, the concrete sides protect the coffin from shattering under the weight of the tumbling earth. This is our preferred choice for the dead. The grave diggers from the cemetery sealed the vault with concrete slabs and a rainproof membrane. Mum was in darkness now.