His name was Ismail, and would have turned 60 next month, but he died 40 years ago today in motorbike accident. 40 years? He has been gone twice as long as he was here.

He had played well in a rugby match a few days earlier, and limped proudly with some minor injury that he had sustained. He loved rugby and was so glad to be finally have found a team to join.

He also loved his motorbike. He only had it for a few short weeks, but he loved it and it made him happy.

Ismail was overall a bit of an odd duck. Never in his life had he tasted a mango, but he knew he didn’t like mangoes. He loved peanut butter more than anything – even more than candy and had a habit of digging into the Easter chocolate long before the bunny could make a proper delivery. Above where the oven was set into the wall, my mother kept rice, flour and sugar in tin cans. The one on the end was the sweets tin – we called in sweets in South Africa, not candy, and tins not cans. The stash always wavered between empty and almost empty.

Ismail was also a bit of a ladies man.  My poor grieving mother was a bit confused when she found 3 weeping girls by her side, each proclaiming to be the grieving girlfriend. I think he’s favorite was Zaitoon. He liked her enough to sneak out of our house and into hers in the middle of the night for secret visits. As the little sister who was always out of the loop, I only heard rumors of him diving behind the couch when her father came to investigate the voices he heard, and of a mysterious dent that had appeared on the front of the family car. I do remember an uncle being summoned one night when Ismail, at 18, was determined to marry Zaitoon the very next day. It probably had something to do with being busted during his late night secret visits. I was just the little sister, what did I know.

Ismail had a temper. I don’t remember the details, but we were playing table tennis as children and he came after me in a rage. My life saver/big brother Ashraf intervened and saved me from certain death by table tennis paddle. Ashraf continues to remind me about the time he saved my life. Ismail also got mad when he lost at Monopoly or cards, even though he cheated all the time.

He wasn’t very good at all about losing. I remember him walking off into the veldt alone after the Lions – our favourite rugby team – lost.  He’d come back red-eyed, but no-one dared say a word under the dark cloud of his foul mood. Even when we played rugby on the front lawn, which we spent most of our Sundays doing as children, he’d be in a foul mood if someone scored against him. My father would sometimes say “Pasop, jy trap nou op daai lip” – an Afrikaans reference to stepping on a pouting lip which loses all effect in translation.

As a child, Ismail was always in trouble. On more than one occasion I remember my mother chasing him down the street. Of course I have no recollection of the events leading up to the neighborhood chase. He’d let her catch him eventually, and he’d be banished to the backyard for the rest of the day, so my father could see what a terrible child he was. With no remorse, he’d relax in the wheelbarrow and try to persuade one of the good children, Ashraf and I, to sneak him something to eat.

How to capture all my memories of someone who I only knew for 15 years so that the memories are never lost? There was the Bruce Lee obsession including home-made nunchucks and a Bruce Lee outfit sewn by my mother. This phase included watching Bruce Lee movies over and over and over and over again.

I have this thread of a memory of going to a movie – and somehow ending up in the wrong theatre. It turned out to be an Indian movie, which Ashraf and I were happy to stay and watch even though we didn’t understand a word. But Ismail started to cry, so we had to leave. I can’t remember if we walked home or went into another theatre. I had completely forgotten that whole incident. Strange how memories tease just beyond your grasp.

There was his pellet gun that he spent hours and hours shooting at tin cans. There were numerous injuries over the years from playing in the veldt. Ismail’s wounds always got the most disgusting and oozed ghastly fluids. There was a shirt warmed and scorched over a bar-heater that my mother only discovered days later in the wash. There were school shoes worn through by the end of the first term when Ashraf’s and mine were still good at the end of the year. Somehow, through all this, he was always my mother’s favourite child.

There was an incident of him getting into a fight with a stranger on a public bus who was trying to harrass a female passenger.  My mother was so proud of him for standing up for that young lady.

And there was his affection for Anisa.  Anisa was – and still is – everyone’s favourite little cousin (even in her forties now), but Ismail loved her the most and she loved him equally.  If he could see her know he’d be so proud of her.

Rest in peace IV – I hope its nice there where you are.

If you have a memory of Ismail that you’d like to share, please leave a comment.