My grandfather, Abdul Gani Parray – Abaji, spent his life as an educator, shaping young minds and serving his community. But when I think of what he has taught me, very little of that has to do with textbooks or classrooms.
Around the time when most people retire and look forward to a quieter life, he endured losses and carried burdens that could very easily have broken or made him withdraw from the world.
The years that should have been about rest, demanded courage, and required him to begin all over again.
Many people would have allowed grief to take over. He didn’t.
He became a protector, a guide, a disciplinarian and, in many ways, a father figure to his grandchildren who looked to him for strength and certainty, and somehow, even through his own losses, he gave us both.
There was always a home to return to – a familiar voice asking where we had been and a certainty that he had our back.
Today, he sits surrounded by his great-grandchildren. For them, he is simply Abaji: the keeper of stories, the dispenser of blessings and the person whose approval matters more than they realize.
They compete for his attention – massage his shoulders and argue about who did it best. They wait desperately for a word of praise, a smile, or that slightly awkward kiss of affection which doesn’t come often.
They know him as a normal grandparent who jokes with them, scolds them, calls them little rogues and sometimes chases after them when they get too mischievous. They don’t know the whole story behind the 92-years-old remarkably resilient man.
They don’t have to. Because what they have seen is not his grief, but what he chose to make of it.
He could have become hardened by everything life took from him. Instead, he built a family around love, laughter, discipline, faith and, most importantly, belonging.
And that is what a teacher’s soul is about – not to stop teaching when they leave the classroom. Sometimes the lessons are in textbooks. And sometimes, the most lasting lessons are simply demonstrated through the way a person lives.
Abaji taught generations of children from a classroom.
But he taught us through his life what resilience looks like – to carry responsibility without making a show of it, and to endure loss without allowing it to harden you.
For us, he is not simply Abdul Gani Parray. He is Abaji, and I still think of him as one of my greatest teachers, because of what he showed us by the way he lived.
Happy Teacher’s Day, Abaji.
