Grandfather’s Final Wish: A Journey Back to Where It All Began

I always thought my grandfather would live forever.
He was one of those people whose presence filled every room, whose laughter made even the bitterest tea taste sweet. His hands were always stained with earth from the garden, and his words always carried stories from a world that seemed older than time. But age, as it does, crept in silently. His memory started to blur, and his steps grew uncertain. And yet, his spirit never faded.

It was in his final days, lying on the hospital bed with a tired smile, that he called me close and said,

> “There’s one thing I need you to do for me, beta. Please… take me home. One last time.”



I didn’t know what he meant at first. We were already home, weren’t we? But then he whispered, "Not this home. I mean my home—our ancestral village, where your Dadi and I planted our first sapling, where your father was born… where I buried my mother with my own hands."

His voice cracked, and a tear slid from the corner of his eye.
“I want to rest beside her. That’s all I ask.”


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A Promise Made

That night, I sat beside him holding his weathered hand, promising him I would take him back. “Even if I have to carry you myself, Dada. You’ll go home.”

He smiled faintly. “Good boy,” he said.
He passed away two nights later.

His death left a hole in our family no words could fill. The house felt colder, quieter. But I remembered the promise, and I knew that this wasn’t the end of his journey. It was only a transition.
The family, at first, was resistant.
“It’s too far,” they said.
“The village is deserted now.”
“There’s no one left there.”

But my father, usually a man of silence, placed a hand on my shoulder.
“If your Dada trusted you with this… then do it.”


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The Journey Begins

We hired a private vehicle, placed his ashes in a small handcrafted wooden urn, and began our journey—over 700 kilometers to a village that no longer appeared on digital maps.
The roads were rough. Some paths had been consumed by forests, others by floods. Yet, with every passing tree, I felt closer to him.

The stories he had once told me came alive.
“That tree,” I whispered, recognizing the crooked mango trunk he once said he carved his and Dadi’s initials into.
“That well,” he told me, “is where I nearly fell in chasing a kite.”

We reached just before sunset. The village was no more than scattered bricks and moss-covered walls. But the banyan tree in the center still stood tall—as if time had bowed in reverence.


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A Place to Rest

I found the spot near the old tree, just as he had described it. “Under the banyan,” he once said. “That’s where Amma lies.”
There was no headstone, just a pile of stones barely holding form. But I knew.
I sat there in silence, holding the urn to my chest. I could almost hear his voice in the breeze.

“I’m home now,” I whispered.

We laid him to rest beside his mother, fulfilling a promise and completing a circle.
I planted a sapling between the two mounds. It was his favorite—a guava tree.

> “So that even in death, I’ll give fruit,” he had once joked.




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Closure, Not Goodbye

As we prepared to leave, I took one last walk around the ruins of the village.
I found a rusted swing in the backyard of what used to be his house. The seat was broken, the chains half-buried in mud, but I could still imagine him pushing my father on it as a child.

I took photos—not to share on social media, but to preserve memories.

As we drove away, I looked back one last time. The sun had begun to dip, casting golden light over the grave, the tree, the swing, the house.

He was home. Finally.


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Epilogue: His Legacy Lives On

When I returned, I started compiling all his stories into a journal. My siblings and cousins helped. Every chapter began with “My Dada once said…”

I realized then: some people don’t truly die.
They simply live on… in stories, in trees, in promises kept.