Mahdi Ahmed

THREE YEARS WITHOUT YOU

By mahdiahmed on August 5, 2025

It’s been three years, Bappa.

Three years since that early morning of August 5th, 2022, when the world seemed to hold its breath… and never let it out again.

I was there beside you in that cold, sterile ER. The hum of machines. The smell of antiseptic. When your vitals began to fade, they wheeled you into the resuscitation room—right in front of me. The door was left slightly open, as if it didn’t dare close.

I could see your feet on the bed. Every time they pressed the paddles to your chest, your body fought back in violent jolts, your feet lifting from the bed with each surge of electricity. I wanted to run in. I wanted to scream. But I stood there, trapped inside my own skin, my hands trembling, my heart begging the clock to turn back.

Forty-five minutes. That’s how long they tried to bring you back. Forty-five minutes of hope and horror, braided so tightly I couldn’t breathe. And then at 07:33 AM—it stopped. One moment they were fighting for you, the next… silence. An ending so abrupt it felt like a blade.

Three years. People say time heals. But it doesn’t. Not really. Time only teaches you how to walk with the wound. The emptiness doesn’t shrink—it just learns to hide in the folds of your days. Until a smell, a sound, a memory slices you open again. Some memories of you sit quietly in corners, like the cane you left behind. Like the flip-flops you wore the last time we rushed you to the ER. And through it all, what remains untouched—what never fades—is a love that stays forever, quietly holding everything you left behind.

Your dreams still live here. The big ones, the stubborn ones, the ones you never got to chase. Some fulfilled. Others, sadly, taking far longer to fulfill than we first dreamed.

I wish you had laughed more. I wish you had seen more. I wish I had said the words I thought I had time to say.

Three years, Bappa.

And I still miss you in ways words cannot carry.

I love you, Bappa.

May Allah grant you the highest place in Jannat al-Firdaus, where there is no pain, only peace and light. May Allah bless your soul for the love, prayers, and dreams you carried.

Amen.