I Buried My Grief

But lockdown made Punteha van Terheyden, 34, finally face the heartbreak of losing her aunt

- Punteha Van Terheyden

On every shelf, in every room of my home, delicate copper photo frames stand on display with faces of my loved ones smiling back at me. There’s my husband, Andy, 38, and our daughter, Amelia Elina, four, known as Millie, our parents, grandparents, Andy’s sister, and brother, and our best friends. My uncles in the UK, and cousins in Iran and America – even their children. But earlier this year, Millie made a keen observation: ‘Mummy, why are there no pictures of Elina?’ There are no pictures of my mum’s youngest sister, Elina, the aunt I named my daughter after. Truthfully, after Elina’s death, I found it too painful to see her pictures any more.

Though Elina lived in Tehran, Iran, and I grew up in Hertfordshire, she’d been a huge part of my life. She and my mum, Ellie, had shared a room growing up until Mum moved to the UK at 22. But they talked every day, joking late into the night, and I’d often hear Mum’s cackle in the air and Elina’s echoing on speakerphone. Every school holiday, I’d visit Elina. Her food tasted like Mum’s, her eyes sparkled with mischief, and she was liberal, forward-thinking, and fiercely independent.

But Millie’s question set me thinking, and during the first lockdown I fished out photos from the holidays I’d spent with Elina. I stopped at one she’d taken of me, aged 15, with her son, Arian, then 10, and two more of my cousins, Salar, then 16, and Sardar, 14, just minutes before she went to bed. Late into that hot Tehran night, the four of us had played backgammon and laughed until we cried.