I rarely browse through old photos anymore. But whenever I do, I linger at your face sometimes.

You had bushy eyebrows, a gray beard with a hint of red, and stern eyes — stern eyes that should've looked intimidating, but just looked so familiar. A face that gave me a subtle feeling of warmth. You're squinting from the bright sun and holding the hand of my eldest brother, who was only a toddler back then.

This was nearly 30 years ago. There're so many questions that I want to ask you, so many things I want to know about you. Did you take large amounts of salt in your food? Did you iron your own shirts? Did you have a green thumb? Did you like children?

Would you have liked me? In a lot of ways, I think my eldest brother was lucky that he was the firstborn son. In genuine honesty, I don't know if things would ever be the same if he had ended up being a daughter.

I look at my own father, in many ways an enigma of his own, and just try to conjure up the image of you standing right beside him. Would you be proud of your son? Would you grunt and mumble around the house, changing things around to how you see fit, or recline on the sofa for hours, eyes glued to the Mets game?

My father had worn, yet steady hands. With his wrinkled fingers, he helped plant small patches of mint in our garden, next to the roses. Would you follow right behind him telling him where and exactly how to plant the mint?

Would my father, nearly 60 years old, tremble at the sound of your voice? Would it be booming and deep, like a Bengali politician, or raspy and unintelligible?

Would you come back from the garden and splatter the kitchen with water trying to wash your hands?

Do you furrow your eyebrows the same way whenever calculating the day's latest earnings? Do you, like my father, like your son, like your grandchildren, have a habit of absent-mindedness?

Would your eyes light up whenever you heard the good news?

Did your hands ever ball up into tight fists whenever enraged? Did you ever pray for forgiveness?

I wasn't close with my grandparents, neither my maternal side nor my paternal side, except maybe my mother's mom. But even then, it was because I saw her the most. You didn't even know that I would exist before you passed away.

I would be lying if I said I didn't think about you at all. You're a mystery, but a painful one. My life is fairly content, all praises to God, but there were always gaps here and there, gaps that were just always present in some way, and you're one of them. I wanted to really know you, who you really were and how you were like, and have you love me like you loved my eldest brother. I want to really see you as my father's father, Ahmed, a part of me, and not just a mere name my parents told me about.

There are very few pictures of you, too. The one picture of you squinting in the field next to my brother, holding your cane, is all that I have to remember that you once existed.

It's all I have to remember that, and although I never knew you and you never knew me, and I was born and raised in a place you've never seen, my deepest roots extend from you. And maybe, if I were able to get to understand you, I could better understand myself.