Abdul Raheem Fahad Syed with his newborn son, a few months before the young dad was killed in a crash on Symonds St in Auckland. Photo / Supplied
Abdul Raheem Fahad Syed with his newborn son, a few months before the young dad was killed in a crash on Symonds St in Auckland. Photo / Supplied
The pain of her husband's death is still fresh 18 months after he was killed by a drunk driver but Nishat Abedi says God is giving her strength to get through.
Abedi spoke to the Herald after the driver was sentenced to jail on Tuesday in the High Court over the 2017 crash.
Taxi driver and new father Abdul Raheem Fahad Syed, 29, was killed when Farshad Bahadori Esfehani's Mercedes slammed into his taxi on Auckland's Symonds St two days before Christmas.
Esfehani was jailed for three years and eight months today, disqualified from driving for four years and ordered to pay $12,000 to his victim's family for damage to his car.
Abdul Raheem Fahad Syed was killed when a drunk driver slammed into his taxi on Symonds St in the early hours of December 23, 2017. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Abedi had prayed Esfehani wouldn't get home detention.
"Otherwise every other person who drinks and drives won't take this issue seriously. It should be a lesson for these youngsters ... You have taken the life of a person," she said. "The choices he made, for what he did, I hope he understands and doesn't repeat it."
Farshad Bahadori Esfehani, 22, has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison over the crash which killed Abedi's husband. Photo / Sam Hurley
Nothing would bring her husband back but every day his young son Syed Abdul Raheem became more and more like him, she said.
"He is a little copy of my husband," she said. "My husband was very particular about cleanliness and this little man is exactly like that - he wants his things to be in a proper place."
Their frowns are identical, they share an obsession with sweets and Abdul had picked up his dad's habit of walking and talking on the phone.
Syed Abdul Raheem is almost two and is a carbon copy of his father, mum Nishat Abedi says. Photo / Supplied
Many times Abedi had thought about going back to India, where Syed was buried. But she wanted to respect his wishes to raise their son in New Zealand - even though that was getting harder.
Panic attacks and heart palpitations hit frequently, and other members of Syed's family had also been unable to move past their grief.
Syed's 75-year-old father went to his son's grave in their native Hyderabad every day and cried "like a little baby", Abedi said.
"We always think that grief, as time passes, it reduces. But it's happening the opposite way. It's getting more and more and more difficult to survive without him."
Abdul was 5 months old when the crash happened; this month he will turn 2. He was starting to speak in sentences and he knew the man pictured on her phone cover was "Baba", or father.
Each morning, before he went to daycare, he would look at Abedi's phone and say "Baba bye, see you" and give a kiss, she said.
Nishat Abedi holds her son Abdul Fahad Syed, after her husband was killed by a drunk driver. Photo / Michael Craig
Abedi was currently on a work visa but was trying to get New Zealand residency on humanitarian grounds. Working full-time, as required by Immigration NZ, left her with little time with her son, she said.
"That's the thing I'm regretting. I'm here [in New Zealand] for my son and I'm not getting enough time to spend with him. That really bothers me a lot."
