OMARKassim

The Year Gone By

It’s been exactly one year since by youngest brother, Muhammed Kassim passed away after his stationary motorbike was hit from behind by a drunk driver.

My brother was 17 years old, but his maturity and character were exemplary. He would work at a problem till it was down and beaten. He loved and respected my parents in a manner that is hard to come by these days. He treated everyone with sincerity and always with a smile. That smile opened so many hearts and doors.

Our plan was always to takeover the world together. Scheming and plotting towards the corporate empire that we would one day build. This was no fanciful dream either, business runs in our blood, and we were sure that with enough hard & smart work we would make it happen.

And we would make sure that we named our parent company something funny in the dialect of Gujrati that we speak at home, so that we could one say sit back and laugh when the talking heads on CNBC would state that our share price had gone up and only a handful of us would know that our name meant something silly.

Unfortunately life doesn’t always work out the way you plan. The last thing I expected was for the youngest of us all to be taken away first. I always figured it would be my parents first, and I thought of this and planned how we as a family would deal with it. But my youngest brother was a shock.

As Muslims our belief in the hereafter and that we will inshallah (“god willing” in Arabic) see each other once again is what gives me great comfort. I am not sure how someone without a strong belief system tackles the tremendous grief that a situation like this brings. I am unsure whether I would have been able to.

Stuck to the noticeboard above the desk that my brother and I co-designed, is a statement that says “This is where it will happen.” He was a true believer in making it happen. Now he has forced us to make sure it happens. I hope that my brother Aamir and I can do him proud one day.

From four siblings we became three. We continue to fight each day, remembering those that we have lost, bearing the pain in our hearts with courage, wiping away the tears when they come, smiling when we remember happier times.

I really miss him.