Dear Fika,
If the world had seen you the way we did, they would have known a soul like yours comes once in a lifetime.
You were the rarest kind of brother, the kind who carried wisdom in his laughter and depth in his jokes. You could take the heaviest parts of life and, with just a few words, make them feel lighter. You made pain funny, not to dismiss it, but to help us survive it.
You were the glue, the compass, and the heartbeat of this family. When things got hard, you were the one who made them easier, for everyone but yourself. You shouldered struggles in silence because that’s what you thought a man should do. But we saw you. Even when you thought no one did.
To our parents, you weren’t just a son-you were their greatest pride, their safest haven, their living joy
To Mom, you were more than a child, you were her kindred spirit. She didn’t just love you; she admired you. You had this special way with Mom, like you were her friend just as much as her child. She could tell you anything, and you’d listen with that knowing smile, the one that made her feel understood. She loved you with every fiber of her being, not because you were perfect, but because you loved her fiercely, faithfully, without condition. You made her feel, in a world that often overlooks mothers, that she still mattered, wildly, deeply.
And Dad, God, Dad relied on you in ways he’d never admit aloud. You were his compass. The one he turned to when the world didn’t make sense. The son who remembered the things he forgot. You were the one who showed up not with grand gestures, but with the quiet consistency that builds a family’s backbone. Dad didn’t just love you; he trusted you. With the hard conversations. With the unspoken fears. Because you? You were steady. You were sure. You were the rare soul who could carry others’ burdens without letting them feel the weight.
That’s who you were to them: not just a son, but their heart walking around outside their bodies. And no lie, no smear campaign, no twisted narrative can ever change that sacred truth.
The Brother Who Made Life Brighter
You didn’t just make people laugh, you made them feel alive. Your humor wasn’t just joking; it was a lifeline, a secret language of joy that could disarm even the heaviest hearts.
You had this uncanny genius for turning mundane moments into comedy gold. A simple grocery runs? You’d narrate it like an epic adventure, complete with dramatic commentary on the “dangerous” cereal aisle. A family argument? You’d mimic everyone’s expressions with cartoonish precision until we were all crying with laughter instead of frustration.
But what truly set you apart was how safe you made us feel. Your laughter was never at anyone’s expense, it was an invitation. We could be our weirdest, most unfiltered self around you, because you’d match our energy and multiply it with your own. Your signature move? The “serious talk” bait-and-switch. Just when we thought you were giving profound advice; you’d hit us with an absurd one-liner that shattered the tension.
That was your alchemy: You didn’t just lighten moods, you rebuilt broken spirits with laughter as your tool. Your humor was shelter. Your wit was warmth. And your presence? That was home.
The Man Who Gave Everything, Even When Empty
Here’s what hurts the most: You made life easy for others while yours was so hard. You gave advice while drowning in problems no one knew about. You cracked jokes while swallowing your own pain. You showed up always even when you had nothing left to give.
That’s who you really were.
Not the lies they told to anyone who would listen.
Not the villain they painted with their carefully crafted half-truths.
Not the unstable narrative they sold to the world.
Not the broken man they tried to convince you you’d become.
You were the father whose love knew no limits.
The son who honored his parents without condition.
The brother who carried our burdens when his own grew too heavy.
The friend who showed up not just in words, but in actions that spoke louder.
The man who laughed even when his heart was breaking, who gave even when he had nothing left.
You were the light in dark rooms.
The steady hand in chaos.
The truth in a world of twisted stories.
That’s who you were.
That’s who you’ll always be.
No amount of lies can change what love remembers.
You were love. You were light. You were home.
What I Wish You Knew
Fika, I wish you knew how your laughter was our family’s oxygen, the thing that kept us breathing when life tried to suffocate us. I wish you knew that your jokes weren’t just jokes; they were life rafts you threw to us without ever realizing we were drowning.
I wish you knew when you reenacted the dramatic retelling of your stories, you weren’t just making us laugh, you were stitching our family together with threads of joy. Those moments weren’t fleeting; they became the stories we retell like sacred texts, the kind that start with “Remember when Fika…” and end with aching sides and tear-filled eyes.
I wish you knew how many people clung to your humor like a prayer. Me battling anxiety? You turned my panic into punchlines until my shoulders finally unstiffened. You had this radar for pain, you’d spot it before anyone else did and your comedy was your way of saying, I see you.
Most of all, I wish you knew that your silence wasn’t strength. That when you swallowed your own pain to be everyone else’s light, we would have gladly sat in the dark with you. You thought your value was in what you could fix for others, but Fika, your magic was in your brokenness too, in the way your eyes still crinkled at the corners even when they were tired, in the way your laugh sometimes sounded a little too loud, like you were convincing yourself as much as us.
We would have fought the world to give you back even half the peace you gave us.
But since we can’t, we’ll do this instead: We’ll keep telling your stories. We’ll laugh at your memory until it stops feeling like a wound and starts feeling like the gift you always meant it to be. And we’ll try, every day, to love each other the way you loved us, with humor as an armor, and joy as an act of rebellion.
You deserved so much more time. But God, I’m grateful for the light you left behind.
I wish you knew how deeply you were cherished.
I wish you knew how much your laughter healed us.
I wish you knew that we would have fought harder, if only we’d seen the war you were in.
But most of all, I wish you knew this:
Your truth lives on.
In every story we tell.
In every life you touched.
In every moment we remember the real you, not the shadow they tried to create, but the radiant, irreplaceable soul we were blessed to call family.
We won’t let the world forget.
Forever missing you,
—Banchu (Namasha)