A silent tribute

There are only a few men in my life whom I highly respect. The kind of respect that isn't loud or meant for anyone else to witness, but just for me to feel. It is a deep-seated regard born from watching how they carried themselves through the years, and how they carried our family through various situations. It has been over 20 years since I lost bapa. It has been over a decade since I lost Jeje.

Today, it has been over a year since I lost another man I deeply loved and respected: Peesa.

The Call

It was a night like any other. I was sitting with my friends, casually discussing what to have for dinner, when I got a call from my cousin. What she said pulled the carpet out from under my feet in just a few sentences. Peesa was hospitalized, and the doctors didn’t have much hope. Those were the only two details my brain could actually register; everything else became background noise. The what, the when, the why... none of it mattered. The only reality was that Peesa was in the hospital, and his chances of survival were slim.

It took me a few minutes to comprehend what was happening. In moments like this, the brain desperately tries to make sense of things, asking endless questions in a futile attempt to combat the growing anxiety underneath. My heart felt like it was in a free fall. I paced the corridor for a good fifteen to twenty minutes, throwing question after question at my cousin.

But slowly, the reality caught up to me: I was going to lose him. Two days later, another call came. I did lose him. And there was absolutely nothing I could do. I was 1,500 kilometers away from home, grinding away at work, and just like that—an anchor of our family was gone.

Cherished Memories

In the days that followed, memories flooded my mind. I remembered all the times I went to visit his home, and how genuinely happy he always was to invite us for lunch, organizing big feasts to welcome us. I remembered watching him oversee things during the Saptah, always calm, always composed. As a kid, I used to sleep beside him during those gatherings, and I can still picture how slowly and carefully I used to crawl out of bed so as to not wake him up. At times, I was so sleepy that I would accidentally hit his legs while trying to slip away. He would wake up and simply move his legs aside so I could pass. Even though he was exhausted and always slept late during those events, he never scolded me—not once.

Even from afar, I always felt his quiet care. Whenever he spoke to my parents, he always asked about me, wanting to know how I was doing.

When I got married recently, his absence hit me with a profound, heavy weight. I was so used to seeing him at every major family gathering. Everyone was there, but my eyes still instinctively searched the distance for him. I kept imagining him standing quietly in the background, looking over everyone, calmly taking care of people just like he always did. He would have been so happy to be there. I later learned from my parents just how excited he had been for my wedding and how much he had planned for it. Now, I will never get to experience that, and there is a strange, lingering pain in that realization. I would have loved for him to meet my wife, to bless us on our journey ahead. But all of that is wishful thinking now. There are a thousand "what-ifs" we can torture ourselves with, but reality always hits hard and grounds us.

Perhaps the hardest part was looking across the room during the wedding and seeing my father standing alone. I was so used to seeing the two of them together, side-by-side, handling everything. Seeing my father navigating it all without his him broke my heart. Losing an anchor always destabilizes you. You never really know how much you can miss a person until they are really gone.

I find myself at a loss for words here. A lot of things that involve deep feelings are always bound to get lost in translation.

We never really talked much; he wasn’t a man of many words. But I always respected him deeply from a distance. He was a pillar of strength for my father and our family and was always there whenever the family needed him. In fact, growing up, the very word "*Peesa*" automatically meant him. Even though I have other uncles, he was the one who was always there, weaving himself into the fabric of my childhood.

A Lasting Absence

We lost a good man, and his absence can never be filled. The vacuum he left behind is heavy and permanent.

I will always miss him, but more than that, I will carry him with me. I will forever cherish the quiet, beautiful memories of a man who taught me what true, silent strength looks like.

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