When Adeena Razzaq appeared on the basketball court of Jarvis Collegiate Institute in Toronto this week, she arrived with her brother’s clothes.
“Since I was a child, I have been wearing his clothes,” the 18 -year -old told CBC Toronto. “He got angry with me several times, but got used to it.”
It is one of the many ways in which he will cling to the memories of his older brother AFFAN, who died earlier this month for cancer at age 20.
Then there is his sport: the game that attracted him from the moment he was six or seven years old, and that he was on the way to continue professionally.
“Every time I see basketball, I just see it,” Razzaq said.
Standing at six feet and eight inches, the AFFAN Razzaq of Scarborough had accepted a scholarship to play basketball in the north of Oklahoma College and hoped to take its place in the NBA draft one day.
Last December, he was diagnosed with brain cancer, but continued to train even when he underwent aggressive treatment for the disease. The last time he entered a court in Jarvis Ci in July, only a few weeks before he died.
A teammate ‘really humble’
Omar Nicholls, one of AFFAN’s coaches, says that the height and skills of the young man helped accumulate victories in many tournaments and championships over the years, but that they were his skills as a teammate that stood out.
“A really humble, really pleasant child never argued with anyone, he never cursed,” Nicholls said. “He is an incredible child to be close.”
Nicholls, who co -founded a program called Nustep Basketball with his partner Elisha Romain in 2013, helped train AFFAN during the last six years, watching while striving to reach the level of his basketball heroes as Kevin Durant.
The couple was the first to be informed about the diagnosis of cancer outside the Razzaq family.
“Knowing that we refer a lot to him was a lot,” said Romain, who said he divered heading to investigate Affan’s disease and try to find ways to help him feel grounded and supported.
Like his family, Nicholls describes Affan as a fighter.
“In the hospital, I kept talking, you know, we hope you can get out of here soon, be discharged,” he said. “Directed at the end. He said: ‘I’m going to get out of here.'”
A lot of pain
AFFAN’s funeral, held on Monday at a pickering, Ontario, brought scores as former teammates and friends, says the old friend of the Ibrahim Daniyal family.
“The mosque management was surprised to see how many young Canadians said goodbye to him. It was not a community. They were Canadians of all creeds, religions, ethnicities,” Daniyalsaid.
That support is a source of some comfort for the Razzaq family, including Affan’s parents.
“His mother is just praying for him. That’s what he’s doing all the time,” Daniyal said.
Affan’s younger brother, Ayaan Razzaq, 14, said he has lost both a protector and a model to follow.
“He was the person who just wanted to take care of myself, and … I really just wanted the best for me,” he said.
Outside their afflicted family and friends, some of whom Affan Razzaq lived online, where he completed a LinkedIn profile last year, completed with a photo of himself in the middle of the fall.
“Kobe Bryant once said ‘the moment you give up, is the time you let someone more win.’ I live with this appointment every day,” Affan wrote. “My dream is to get to the NBA, and I will not give up until I do.”
