Mourning A Hero

 

Mourning A Hero

 

“What is Grief, if not Love Persevering?” is a dialogue recited by the character named Vision in the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron. This topic might seem way too heavy to be quoting a line from a movie but I have come to realize that this one sentence really binds together my whole experience of loss. Loss is inevitable, whether it is the loss of a favorite object or a person. As kids, we all think that our grandparents are superheroes. They are the ones that are greater than our parents in a way, a legacy that we wish to continue. As we grow up, we realize that just like our parents, our grandparents are human as well. They have lived a life far greater than we know. Which life comes to an end inevitably. Today I am writing about September 6, 2024. The night my Dadabhai (grandfather) passed away.                      

I vaguely remember the night we found out about my grandfather’s death. It was a little past 10 pm when we received the phone call. I think I started crying; I am still not sure. I remember feeling paralyzed, not wanting to believe it. I felt vacant. It was past midnight when we left for Brahmanbaria. We reached after the sun had just risen. Yet, in our home, it felt like the sun had set forever. My Dadu(grandmother) cried holding my dad and my aunts. My Dadu and Dadabhai had a very special bond. They were both near the age of 100 but there was this unspoken love language that they shared which was still clear to the eye. Without Dadabhai, she looked uncomplete. The way she had started to cry that day, it hasn't stopped since. 

                 

Dadabhai’s body was kept on our bed covered by a white sheet. I sat on the floor beside the bed and caressed his forehead and his beard. The coldness of his skin was what brought me back to reality. I realized what had actually happened. My cousin Tomal bhaiya was sitting beside me. We both quietly sat there for a while.

 

Dadabhai was taken to the village in the morning. When the men went to the mosque, they put Dadabhai’s death bed down in our courtyard and left him to me. The people of the whole village visited us that morning. Several women cried holding my grandmother. I had to untie Dadabhai’s shroud cloth a few times because people wanted to see his face. I am not sure how I did that with how my hands were shivering. When the people left and there was some silence, I sat down on the ground beside the bed. Alone with Dadabhai, I spoke to him for a while. Then the men returned and the death bed was carried to the graveyard after the funeral prayer (Janazah). I watched the men lie my dadabhai down on the grave. I felt like I needed to.

                        

The whole experience of losing my Dadabhai was quite tumultuous mentally. But I also feel like I learnt more about him that day then I ever did before. There were hundreds of people at his funeral, even people that weren’t relatives. A man that Dadabhai had gifted a radio to during the Pakistan era, when there was no form of electronic communication in the village; that man came to the funeral as well. There is a dialogue by the character named Wasuke Itadori from the Jujutsu Kaisen animation series which goes, “You're strong, so help others. Just save the people you can. Don’t worry about if they'll thank you or not. When you die, you should be surrounded by people.” Those words played in my mind when I saw the people cry for my grandfather. Dadabhai was exactly the kind of person the author had intended the readers to interpret. A strong man with relentless will to be kind.

                      

For my hero, I choose my Dadabhai, Syed Ahmed. He was a man who never put his own needs in front of anyone else’s. He was a husband who fulfilled his duties and was an incredibly loving companion to his wife. He was a father who did his best to give his children everything they ever wanted. He was a father-in-law that treated daughters-in-law like they were his own daughters. He was a grandparent who made sure every single one of his grandchildren were showered with love and affection. It is hard to imagine having a bad memory with Dadabhai, because he was like this comforting flame over the hearth that gave warmth to the entire family. Even in adverse incidents, Dadabhai managed to maintain everything while never having to resort to violence. A man that has lived for almost a hundred years and died a peaceful death surrounded by hundreds of people tearing up due to his absence. This is the kind of hero I aspire to be. A Hero by choice, not by compulsion.