My uncle too passed away while I was suffering from liver failure. In fact my symptoms were more prominent after he passed away. Every time I look at pictures of my father and my uncle, I feel like someone is tugging at my heart. That horrible suffocating feeling creeps in and I find myself in a moment. A moment where it is hard to accept the truth that both my father and uncle have left us. There is no one now to look at and find a part of them in them. If my uncle was here, I’d at least find it comforting looking at the way he talked and smiled which was similar to my father. The way they made some facial expressions, it was just unique to them. Gosh I miss them both so much. It is easy to sit with family and laugh at the funny memories my father and uncle left us. But it is hard, when all alone and your surroundings are filled with silence. No sound. No movement. Just you and your thoughts. And your pain. The pain is unbearable. How do you undo so many years of habits? How do you suddenly learn to live without your father? The most integral part of your family's life? How do me and my siblings just carry on? When you are adults, people think it is easier for you to move on. They think the pain is OK because your father was in his 70s and he lived a good life. He definitely lived a good life alhumdulillah. He was a content man. He did not chase wealth, neither did he chase large dreams. His life was, prayer, mosque and his family. He would be in and out of the house 4 times a day to go to mosque and then come home. I miss that. I’m sure my siblings miss that too. Sometimes we’d be walking down the local roads and bump into him or see him walking (fast without looking left or right at times – one direction man) and run to catch up to him and tap him on his shoulders.
They were our beautiful days. Amazing days. This is what my dad gave us. His time and attention. As a child he was not the sort of father that took us to amazing places because my dad couldn’t drive. His instructor really wasn’t going to risk his life to teach my father. He just was not made for driving (neither was I!). However he did the most sweetest and adorable things for us. He had a hobby to save pound coins and he would save that in a piggy bank and when summer would arrive, he would take us to the big weekend in Cardiff along with my cousins. He would let us go on unlimited rides.
He had the biggest heart ever. When we were growing up, he did spoil us but also disciplined us. He bought us what we loved and he bought for us what he loved for us too. But he taught us to value money. I still remember when I got my first job, he would pick me up from the bus stop on shorter days. He told me, earn money but don’t be greedy with it. I’m not sure I took that advice well because I spend it mostly on buying people gifts. He used to secretly admire that about me especially when it was father’s day and he was all prepared to hint at his DAUGHTERS what he wanted. Sometimes me and my sister would pretend and tease him that we did not understand his hints. Then he would get like a child and say ‘you buy your mother everything and nothing for your father’. He was such picky person. You could never meet his taste. Everything required exchanging except that last gift I bought my father. He spent so much time in his bedroom since March that I bought him a digital Quran and sent it to him. I was waiting all day like a little girl for him to call me, eager for his happy reaction. Instead, he for some reason believed an East London Mosque had sent him this gadget and he was happily praising them and listening to it. When I told my sister in law that I had sent it she was laughing and went upstairs to my father's room and took a few clips for me where my darling father was shocked in one clip that he wasn’t such a famous celebrity after all and that East London Mosque hadn’t sent it to him. But in the second clip he had a huge smile on his face and he said to me ‘thank you goh zee, khoob Shundor ektah zeenish deesoh' (thank you dear, you sent me such a beautiful gift). I knew when my sister in law sent this video clip, that it would be something I watch every day and cry especially after he was gone. It was going to become like a lifeline. I am forever grateful of my sister in law for sending me this video. It was my aim to one day really give my father something that would gain me his praise. But guess what? The digital Quran became faulty after a few weeks and then my funny father was after me to exchange it and we were having funny fights where I kept saying ‘you’ve damaged it by pressing it too much'. It was only to get a reaction out of him. Sometimes his loud voice was funny and other times he was a bit scary. The replacement journey was another mission bit in the end we got there. He was even more happier with his upgraded version along with a little holder that I had to look for in mobile shop so his gadget would have a place to sit in.
How can you live without such a father? He never failed to keep us laughing and entertained. He made us feel we were so important. He always had a wide smile when he was after Madeira cake from marks & spencers. He loved collecting charity from us but he loved approaching me for this task. He knew I was always ready like him. Before even Ramadan would start, he would call me a month before to get my zakat and later my missed fast money ready to give to poor family members and distant relatives in Bangladesh. He was such a simple man. He knew how to treat his wife and his daughters. He showed so much love to his daughter in law and his 3 sons were his life. Of course we had doomy gloomy days where we had to stay away from him. That’s OK though. That is love. Happiness and sadness. He let us enjoy every emotion with him but in the end his love was unconditional. He would look at his 3 grandsons in awe when they were wrestling. He especially found it funny when my son took part in it because he loved Isam. Isam was his little teddy, in his eyes there was no other perfect grandchild. Isam will never remember any of this. He will never remember how my father fed him when he was a baby, when he put him to bed when I had my transplant and we were living in Cardiff, how my father clipped his nails.
Such gentle and precious memories and I’m glad I have them captured in video and photo forms. His grandchildren will miss him. Aleena talks about him everyday. Most days he picked on her but she would do the same too. It is sad that my children do not have their grandfather from both sides left. They will miss out on the way my dad used to give them Eid gifts, Birthday gifts. Older generation just had a unique way of giving money and gifts in our culture.
So here we are today. No more father. We are all struggling and we aren’t good at expressing it because personally for me, if I started saying I’m missing him, I’ll cry. I will not be able to stop the wave of tears that will follow. I don’t want to cry too much because before my father passed away he looked at us one last time and signalled at us to not cry and he had tears in his eyes. But what do we do with all this time? Yes of course we pray and so on but when we walk into his room and see his things, it feels like he’s with us. When we open his wardrobe door and see all his clothes and smell it, we feel that urgency to have him right next to us even if it was him telling us off. The need feels so strong to just have him in the home amongst us. He loved huddling us into his lovely bedroom which he was so proud of and see us talk. That was his highlight of the day until he would get fed up and say ‘you’re all breaking my room, leave now'. Not that we ever left. He was too cute to leave and he created so much drama and made us laugh.
Since after my transplant I moved to Cardiff temporarily, my parents bought me a bed and put it in their room and a little mattress for Isam. I loved sleeping in the same room as them. Me and my father would talk about life and our health. Sometimes he made it like everyone was conspiring against us because we were unhealthy and he would say we need to just sit together and avoid them as we are not useful. This is what I mean, he was full of drama and he never meant any of them. It would make me laugh so much. The funniest was when he discovered I use my phone all night. He asked me what on earth I do on my phone all night. Then I started hiding my phone under the duvet but the next day he said he caught the light and I was thinking I’m clever. I was 34 years old then and my father was treating me like a teenager. I can write about my father’s stories with me and my siblings and there will be no end. We all have funny stories with him that make us laugh until our tears come out.
This empty feeling will never go away. There will not be another man that will love my family unconditionally. There will be no more me stressing about my father while being in Telford. But we are forever grateful for having had the most amazing father in our life. He taught us well. Even before he passed away, he explained to us to be good to people and kind to them. To look after each other. To make sure all his grandchildren are pious with good imaan and that they also acquire a good education. He told us to never miss our prayers because he never did. He was passionate about his prayers. We were lucky to have a few weeks where he just spoke to us. We will eternally be grateful for this time. I just hope he was happy with us and that we could keep his legacy going and manage to instil some of his values in us.
Life is never going to be the same but we will make sure to live it well and contently as my father and be grateful for the little and big moments in our life.
A picture of his little gadgets he used to listen to Quran recitation and Islamic lectures. The black little gadget is the digital Quran sitting in a gold display chair my father made me buy
