Many People Die at a Young Age, While They Are Buried Many Years Later

Alireza Zare
6 min readAug 23, 2021

A Letter from my grandfather

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

As painful as it was, my grandfather’s death, in effect, gave my life a new meaning, somehow helping me morph into a completely new person.

He passed away in 1992 while asleep in my aunt’s house. He was 73. A couple of days before his death, I visited him in his apple orchard. We were together the whole day, talked about this and that, had tea and laughed. He looked quite healthy, like always.

He asked me to stay for supper, which I declined since I had an important test the following day and had promised a friend of mine to study together. Anyway, I hugged him goodbye, like I always did. This hug was a bit different though. He pressed me so hard I could feel his heart beating and didn’t let go of me for a couple of minutes.

‘We’ll meet again. I don’t know when, but we will.’ That’s what he whispered to my ears. It was strange because we often visited each other a couple of times each week.

‘Sure, we will. I’ll be back to see you soon, grandpa.’ I said. He didn’t say anything. He just waved me goodbye.

It was early in the morning when the phone rang. My mom picked up. It was my uncle. I was somehow feeling something bad had happened. My mom sat on the floor crying, with…

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