Skip to main content

August 7, 2015

As I lay breathing, safe and sound. Cuddled up in my blanket hearing the birds chirping. It hits me once again, he is dead. Gone. Gone for eternity. He has bid his farewells to this cruel world.
Around a month ago I visited a few of the +9000 wounded due to the Saudi Led Coalition, at that time we were working on an Eid project, we were supposed to get each of the injured to say "Eid Mubarak". We got the chance to hear their tragic miseries.
However, he was different, this is his story;
He was on a bus with 17 other people when the missile hit. They all perished, he was the lone survivor. He didn't leave in one piece he lost both legs and was deeply wounded and burnt.
He was too fatigued to speak, he didn't want to say "Eid Mubarak". He felt like his life was futile, vain. He is burned, scarred for life. For a sin he didn't commit.
While awaiting for him to prepare mentally and emotionally, one of the nurses mentioned the fact he doesn't have a wheel chair. He can't afford one.
He wasn't able to afford a poor quality wheelchair that costed 80$. We buy handbags for that price. We go out for coffee spending that much. We told the nurse we'd buy it for him, there's no problem in that, after all it's just $80.
He returned to the injured man and told him, his eyes filled with tears he retrieved the long lost hope. He had faith in humanity once again. He couldn't believe what he had heard, he finally could envisage how life would be as a disabled man. I couldn't believe what I saw he was worried how he would stroll around rather than mourning on the loss of both legs in a blink of an eye.
He then said in a very low voice : Eid Mubarak.
I received the receipt for the wheel chair around 10 days ago, I smiled as I remembered his beautiful smile.
The days passed and a week ago as I was with my group, a girl suddenly popped in and said I have something to say, her face was free of emotions I imagined she came to ask if we'd like tea or coffee as we were at her sister's residence. She said, "What would you like to do with the wheelchair you bought?"
I glared at her for what seemed like eternity. She said, "The man died today and I wanted to know what you'd like to do with it?"
Everything around me blurred and my eyes were flooding with tears, they started pouring down as I looked up to my Mom. She had been talking for the past few minutes telling me not to cry and to reminisce that he is now in a better place. But I solemnly swear it felt like I lost a part of my being. My whole life seemed unavailing. I felt numb, deaden.
All I managed to spout out was: Does he have children, a wife? I received no answer. No one knew.
As we drove back home, I entered my room and in front of me was the receipt I broke down yet again.
I never imagined that lives could end so easily. They can pass by unseen. The moment I think this coalition might come to an end. I thought my fervent will to avenge them was about to wear off, it rather has ignited once again.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Journey of Blissful Pain; The Prisoner Release Arrangement

Her tears were enough to reignite the flames of my rage, a fragile soul made of roses and daisies in such pain, unable to connect the dots between this man and the dad she knows from worn out photographs her mother keeps in the top drawer of her dresser that is slowly falling apart, she gazes into her father's eyes and it finally clicks that this is her dad, the man in the picture is real, this is the very first time she set her big, brown eyes on her dad, and she breaks down into showers of tear turning her face from pale to scarlet, filling every inch of her body with inexperienced joy. The mothers falling to their knees, eyes clouded with tears in complete denial that this day has finally shined upon them, the days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and she patiently waits holding on by her faith in God, she sees her son and breaks down, he might be injured and his legs are at the brink of being amputated, but in that moment nothing matters but him, he is h

Eight years later; the story goes on

The silence is frightening, like the calm before the storm. I am so used to their sounds, their thunders, now all I hear are my thoughts. As I wait for the silence to pass, this calm is now the unknown. I hear the airplanes passing and I can't help but shiver reminiscing when it all started eight years ago, when all I knew was silence that was cut off, always in a sudden, to hear a speeding warcraft above my head about to take away the lives of tens of people at once in a matter of seconds. How can I justify or explain to myself that these are not war crafts these are airplanes, the airplanes that used to sound so natural to me. The airplane that little children would wave at just eight years ago, those same children are teenagers now, and the children today would never wave at an airplane because it never is an airplane, it is always a hovering, killing machine about to take out little kids just like them. Times change and although there is a truce there is no serenity, just the f

Steed Sorrow

In her eyes I saw pain, I saw the feeling of helplessness that I have seen too many times before. In her eyes were wails and screams, the image of a broken soul. She stood so tall yet so frail like the slightest breeze of air could shatter her to pieces. Her bloody body standing above her little one with nothing to do but to accept the pain and to dwell in the sorrow.   Wars are never easy and the losses are never predictable, the only thing guaranteed is pain. Over 1800 days have passed and the only thing that has been stable is the pain. The only constant in our lives is pain. These horses were more than just animals to us Yemenis, these Arabian horses resembled both nobility and courage which are the two components Yemenis are made of. In the past fifty years Yemenis were portrayed and conveyed as savage illiterates who have no morals, all of which are false allegations. In the past five years I have got to know my people because nothing brings people closer together than commo