Please limit your questions to one per question box. The answer to the first question is as follows:
1) Baba and Amir grow close because when push comes to shove they only have each other. Amir's jealousy of Hassan continues because Baba talks of him and wishes he were there. Amir will not understand this until later in the story when he learns that Hassan was his brother.
Baba works menial jobs in order to insure Amir's education, and thus, his future. Baba feels useless, and yet, his illness did not keep him from negotiating his son's marriage. Baba says that the day of Amir's marriage is the happiest day of his life. None-the-less, Amir truly feels his father's love when he learns that Soraya has been reading his stories to Baba by request.
Baba's funeral took place at a nearby mosque. The men's and women's sections of the mosque were separate, so Amir sat next to General Taheri while Soraya and her mother were in another room. Amir acknowledged that Baba was his obstinate self until the end; he even died "on his own terms." Countless people whom Amir had never seen shook his hand and told him how Baba had helped them in one way or another. As he listened to their remarks, Amir realized that he no longer had Baba to define him or guide him; he felt terribly alone. After the burial, Amir and Soraya walked through the cemetery together and Amir cried at last.
