Her latest photo with my grandson Faiz in July 2012
Fakir Syeda Asgari Bano , My Chhoti Aapa passed away on Saturday the 5th of January 1013 at Tirunelveli.
She was 69 and left behind a daughter and two grandchildren besides her husband.
She is the first among us siblings to pass away. I am younger to her but she has an older brother and sister. I had been practically been brought up by her along with rhe elder sister as we lost our mother when I was a year old. Needless to add beside the sibling bond there were the more lasting bonds of mutual growing up as motherless children and her being part mother.
She was a very cheerful and lively person but suffered a lot after her marriage. Not that the marriage had gone wrong and she did not love her husband - it was the other way round - she loved her husband too much and suffered silently.
Her only son also died very young adding another scar to the psyche and she was definitely not her own self the last 20 years.
Luckily she was blessed with a dutiful daughter and and a loving son in law. The grandchildren, particularly the granddaughter, Sama loved and adored her and took care of her to the last.
We were lucky that we were able to see her days before she died. I don't flatter myself when I say that my family, particularly Noor Ayesha, my wife, were her favorite relatives. She loved her three nephews and all three of them could see and talk to her months before she died.
Around 15 December last year we received a call that she had become serious and we rushed to Tirunelveli. She revived after our visit , could recognize and talk coherently - probably for the last time. I think she knew that it would be our last meeting.
God was kind to her in her last days. She passed away without suffering too much and her soul must be definitely much happier now.
