On the field or at store, Ahmed was bright light

In the Islamic faith, death is merely a continuation of life in another form. My man, Ahmed El Messoussi, changed forms the week before last. He might have been 67 years old, or 66, or maybe 65. Nobody really knows because he had three birth certificates in three languages (and he spoke five languages fluently).

I know this: My man Ahmed was young enough to pass a soccer referee’s physical evaluation earlier this year, and that ain’t easy. He was a little old to work the center — although he would,

and ably so, if called upon — but he was still young enough to run a sideline and snap a flag above his head, with authority. If you questioned one of his offside calls, he would turn and smile at you — warmly, genuinely, and with a radiating good humor — and you had to concede he was right. Invariably, he was. Oh, did his eyes twinkle.

Ahmed called a game at Bexley High on a Monday and another at Hartley on a Tuesday — not 24 hours before he died unexpectedly. His body was washed and wrapped, and he was in the ground by Friday afternoon. The convenience store he owned, Lucky Lottery on Livingston Avenue, will carry on with his youngest son, Tarik, who knows the hole in the neighborhood will be difficult to fill.

“I saw the way my dad treated people with respect,” Tarik said, “so I know I’ve got a lot to learn.”

Tarik is another referee. It’s in the family. He guessed that, among his father’s extended family — here and in Morocco