When I Pass Away Poem by Rasheed Sandeelvi

When I pass away,
Who will truly remember me?
My assets will be divided among my children.
My personal belongings will either be distributed or tucked away in a corner and forgotten.
The money in the bank will be withdrawn from the ATM.
Perhaps an old photograph of mine will be hung on the wall.
For the sake of pension,
My wife, accompanied by her sons, will frequent the AGPR office.
Papers will be sorted, signatures will be taken,
And with the passage of time, everything will return to normalcy.
The only difference will be—I will no longer be there.
Initially, there will be some hiccups in the household chores:
How does the geyser work?
Where are the keys kept?
Which document is in which drawer?
Slowly, they will figure it all out.
Then, life will resume its pace, and I will gradually fade away into the humdrum of daily life.
A day will come when I am completely forgotten.
But my daughter— She will never forget me.
She will preserve my every word like a heartbeat.
She will open my books with tender love,
And feel the fragrance of my breath on every page.
Her eyes will never remain dry at the mention of my name.
Among her personal sorrows, my grief will always find a place.
And she will continue to believe that a father never truly leaves;
He lives on in the hearts of his daughters
Rasheed Sandeelvi