Farewell to Chocolate Ahmed

Back in 1984, I entered the sixth grade at the BC Muslim School in Richmond. The atmosphere was much more like an instructional summer camp rather than a school. One of the figures who was always there with a smile was Ahmed Omeria, who the younger children referred to as, "Chocolate Ahmed" because he would give them chocolate. Originally a sailor from South Africa, Ahmed Omeria became as much a part of the masjid as its walls. I left the Muslim School to complete tenth grade through graduation in the public school system (as the Muslim School didn't do high school), went to university, graduated, worked, and whenever I'd come to the Richmond Masjid, Ahmed Omeria was there. After working for two years in Vancouver, I roamed across North America for six years before finally moving back to Vancouver at the end of 2002, and Ahmed Omeria was still there in the Richmond Masjid, making adhan and smiling.

Yesterday I heard news that what befalls us all had befallen Ahmed Omeria: inevitable death. The news saddened many in Vancouver, as well as Vancouver expats in Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt.

Dixit Hopkins:

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

May Allah have mercy on Ahmed Omeria and grant him the highest levels of Paradise, and do the same with us when we reach what he has; ameen.