Ever since I was born, my grandpa smoked huge amounts of cigarettes. When the quarantine started, he smoked even more excessive quantities. During that time, he got sick of the environment around him, and his lungs gave up. In 2021-2022, there were reparative check-ups required at the hospital. Once he got to the point where he couldn’t breathe properly, my grandmother got extremely anxious and called the ambulance. 

While they were on their way, my grandpa decided to smoke one more cigarette. For my grandpa, smoking was a stress reliever. I thought he was out of his mind; why would a person who couldn’t breathe properly do such a thing? When the ambulance arrived, he was still smoking. I bet the doctors have never seen such a person before! They picked him up and headed to the hospital. My father and uncle rushed after the ambulance to see what would happen to my grandpa. Of course, my grandma was upset; her husband, who they had been married for forty-four years, was in the ICU, and he couldn’t breathe properly.

Two weeks passed, and he remained hospitalized. 

The house was empty without his presence. My father was worried about Grandpa’s health and getting out in time before Eid. However, He got out in time, one day before Eid. He looked frail, and his lips were dry; he looked like he had risen back from the dead. At first, he could not speak; sooner or later, he would be saying a few words. He would later tell me about the devices used on him by doctors. “One of them felt like he was falling off an airplane,” he described. After that long stay at the hospital, my grandpa decided to “quit” smoking for good. All the family members thought this would work, and they kept taking him out to new places, to smell fresh air.

Eventually, I would find my grandpa smoking one or two cigarettes a day; my grandma would be controlling the amounts. This would not last too long! He returned to his old habits; he kept having morbid thoughts, daily check-ups to the hospital, anger issues, devastation increased after a while, and problems with breathing showed quickly.

We were all concerned about his mental and physical health. After a while, his health became steadily worse and worse. 

After a year’s worth of check-ups and many fights for him to stop smoking, he went to the hospital. Little did I know this was the last. He stayed there for about a full month. The first two weeks there had no effect on any of us since all visits were a bit long. There was this incident that happened during the Prince’s wedding; my grandpa’s heart stopped for 5 minutes straight. We all thought he would not make it. “It was a miracle” according to my grandma. A week later, his heart stopped again, but this time it was only for one minute. My grandmother almost gave up; she couldn’t believe that he survived all that.

When my grandmother went to visit my grandpa, she saw his condition was getting better. He was talking to her, eating and drinking properly. My aunt and grandma went to talk to the doctors, and they said he would be getting out the next day. When my grandmother heard the news, she was thrilled! She got everything prepared for the next day.

It was the next day; it was a Monday, which meant my cousins and I couldn’t see him right away, but we could see him after school. My uncle went to pick up my grandpa, he went to his room, packed everything, and fed him some yoghurt. My uncle went to get the papers ready, and he came back from the office… to find my grandpa dead.

The news got around in seconds. My mom’s friend came and picked us up from school. I knew something was up; I told myself, “What if my grandpa died?” but I denied it. When I saw my mom wearing all black, I knew what happened. I burst down crying and couldn’t believe what my ears just heard. My grandfather and I were so close; we had so many things in common. Even when he was sick, I used to sit with him and tell him what would happen to me in school. I just couldn’t imagine a world without him.

In the end, I learned that I should value and take good care of my health and body—and that I shouldn’t use anything that would harm me or my body in the future. As my grandpa said, “Never take anything for granted.”

—Reef Abbasi