The lottery-winning ticket of being born in a stable foreign country came at the price of a truly close and personal relationship with my grandparents. In all honesty, this was something I quietly envied in the lives of my cousins back home—not out of malice, but during certain key moments, I found myself wishing that Dadu and Dadi were there to witness it all firsthand.

Our parents were strongly aware of this price and tried to nurture our grandparent-grandchild bond through phone calls and trips to Bangladesh. Every few years, we would visit our Dadubari (grandfather's house in Bengali) and were enveloped in the unconditional love of our Dadu and Dadi. Despite this, I don't think we ever really shared a proper conversation, and if we did, it was never really about them. Dadu, in particular, rarely talked about himself. His questions always revolved around us—our interests, our lives, or whether we had eaten to our heart's content. Dadi would occasionally fill in the gaps, sharing snippets about him, mostly focusing on how deeply he loved us and celebrated us every chance he would get.

The truth is, I never truly knew my Dadu.

As I grew into my teenage years, my Dadi had sometimes mentioned how he couldn't wait for me to graduate or get my first job or get married, as Dadu would be able to give serious advice, man to man, on these key life events. This hope that I could hear some real-talk from Dadu had guided me in some ways through my teens. I was silently and patiently biding my time, looking forward to the promised day when my Dadu would sit me down and bestow upon me the wisdom that he had gained over his long and fruitful life.

That day never really came.

By 2019, his health had seriously deteriorated. He had grown weaker and wearier in the years leading up to it, and things had gotten quite serious by then. Abbu's brothers had been hinting at the fact that Dadu might not be around for long, so he booked a ticket for Bangladesh for the 13th of June 2019. On the morning of his flight, I decided to spontaneously book tickets as well and tag along on his trip for support.

We landed in Bangladesh on the 14th of June 2019 and arrived at Dadu's hospital that same evening. By this point, he hadn’t been properly responsive for a few days, so when we arrived, no one was sure if he would even realize or understand that Abbu and I had come.

Abbu approached him gently, holding his hand lightly and giving him a small nudge, softly telling Dadu that he had arrived and brought me along. We all waited in silence, until Abbu felt a strong squeeze on his hand. Hearing his voice, Dadu woke in disbelief. A tear rolled down his cheek as he realized we were truly there.

Abbu beckoned me to come closer and hold Dadu's hand while he went to sit with Dadi and his brother to discuss the doctor's report. Dadu and I sat in silence and I looked at him while the conversation faded into the background.

My eyes carefully examined every inch of the face that I had grown to love fondly. His eyes—the same ones that Abbu's older sister and younger brothers had inherited. His nose—passed down to my brother, baby sister, Abbu, and his older siblings. And his thick—now snow-white—hair, a trait everyone in the family had always said I was uniquely blessed with—something I had always taken immense pride in. I took all of him in. Here lay a great man, gripping my hand tightly as I sat beside him. A greatly loved and deeply respected man whose name—Ashraf—had also been granted to all of his grandchildren in the form of our middle names.

Unknowingly, that moment holding his hand would be the last moment we would share together.

Dadu passed away on the 18th of June 2019, around 3 am Bangladeshi time. He was a loving husband, a beloved father of five and the doting grandfather of eleven—later twelve. He was not only an immensely loved and respected member of his hometown, but also held the deepest respect of many within the wider region of northern Bangladesh. On the morning of his funeral, mere hours after his passing, scores of people from all over the region had come to my Dadubari to pay their respects and partake in the funeral processions.

By the time we reached the family graveyard, the roads near and around our town were lined with people who had come to pay their respects, their faces filled with grief and reverence—a sea of mourners stretching as far as the eye could see.

I didn’t truly know this man, nor did I ever have the chance to share a meaningful adult conversation with him. Yet, seeing all these people come to pay their respects, I ironically learned more about my Dadu on the day of his death than I ever could have hoped to through a conversation.

There’s one more story about my Dadu that I often reflect on—a memory that, for me, beautifully ties everything together:

When Abbu first mentioned the idea of moving abroad some thirty years ago, Dadu was enraged. He was vehemently against it, even shouting that if Abbu moved abroad, he wouldn’t be around to bury him when the time came.

Really, this was the true price of that lottery-winning ticket—the cost of leaving behind a lifetime of shared moments and milestones with the people our parents loved most. For Abbu, it meant saying goodbye to his father during his best years, trading the steady bond of presence and closeness for fleeting visits and long-distance connections. It was a sacrifice he accepted to build a better future for us, even if it came with moments of longing for what he had left behind.

I'm grateful that in the end, despite everything, Abbu was able to bury his Abba.