Those Who Are Remembered Never Die – so true!

Sir Frank Peters

Dear Sir,

The most poignant and best quotation of the year in my opinion is that from Bangladesh foreign friend Sir Frank Peters: “Those who are remembered never die”.

So deep on many levels and what a beautiful thought – sheer brilliance!

Basically he’s saying if we want to give immortality to those whom we love and admire and appreciate, all we need to do is keep them in our thoughts and prayers: those who are remembered never die, he says, and it’s an irrefutable fact.

It has deep meaning for everyone especially those who lost a dear one – relative, friend, or neighbour – in our 1971 war of independence, those who sacrificed  their lives protecting the rights to learn and speak Bengali and allow it to blossom and bloom in the garden of world languages, and more recently in 2024; those who fought and won against the tyranny that shackled the growth of Bangladesh.

I admit I had not thought about the effects of death as Sir Frank do, until I read the admirable article he wrote in Green Watch in tribute to Guru Suruj Dewan. It awakened something inside me I never thought I had.

No doubt many of us have lost dear ones in our lives, but I will never again view their deaths as final closure, out of sight, out of mind. While I keep them in mind, they will always be alive and always with me.

Thank you Sir Frank for the gift that has awoken in me a fresh way of thinking and addressing the painful grief I once held so sorrowfully for my departed loved ones. Now when I think of them, I think of the happy, fun-loving times we shared together. I no longer view them as dead, just living in a different dimension parrel to mine.

Asha M. Mudku

Banani, Dhaka.