Remembering Rilwan

It is hard to imagine what Rilwan’s parents and his siblings go through everyday, missing him as they do. I lost a brother suddenly, to a motorcycle accident, now well over 20 years ago. The shock and pain on my mother’s face when she realised her only son was no longer with her has haunted me ever since. I see the same look on the face of Rilwan’s mother, Aminath Easa, every time I see pictures of her. Haunted, hunted, bereft. The photograph of her and Rilwan sitting on the wall near Raalhugan’du, so obviously delighted to be with each other, is now seared into our collective consciousness—every time I see it, I think of Aminath’s grief. Of my mother’s. Of his sister Shehenaz, who turns her memories of him into poetry. I think of his other siblings, members of his family, young and old, who all speak of him with such love. I think of his father.

How does he bear it?

Recently, a VNews journalist wrote of how he notices Rilwan’s father, Abdulla Moosa, wherever a crowd gathers in Male’. The reporter stopped to ask him why.