image_pdfimage_print

Source: The Wall Will Fall
365 Days are Longer Than a Year
Tell me how did you spend the last 365 days? Did you end up getting that job offer? Did you get that scholarship you were working so hard to get? Did you graduate high

school/university or perhaps you just got your pHD! Whatever you achieved I congratulate you!
Well I’d like to speak of my 365 days.

You know how we always chant the phrase day by day it all seems the same but looking back it’s so different. I aged a life time within 365 days. I have experienced so much from fleeing my home to running down a set of 70 stairs in fear of a jet blowing up our third floor. Crying for nights and nights feeling death encircling me to laughing to the sound of explosions. Yes, I have lived some of the worst days of my life but I wouldn’t change them for the world. Only now have I realized what an enormous amount of pride comes with being Yemeni.

I am now in my senior year and I have broke down into fits of tears more times than I can count in school due to the sudden air raids but my friends support me with a jolt of strength I’ve never experienced before. This year everything is so different. once I was crying in class from a mix of fear and stress then suddenly the whole class surrounded me with a group hug and I don’t remember feeling so loved in my entire life. This coalition has done and is still doing damage that seems irreparable at time but one thing that no one but them has managed to do is unite this country into one.

I feel so complete. Now I know I am capable of facing anything life throws at me, I know I am strong enough. I will always have a constant reminder of my strength the blood of the martyrs who sacrificed everything for me to be able to live a life, a life worth living. It’s truly quite peculiar how even though death has the key to my back door I sleep safe and sound. I still do get grounded and I still am clumsy you’d think death would make me a bit more graceful but nope! I still am the same girl who runs around tables and makes weird faces at my mom to make her laugh cause oh boy does her laugh make me feel five again.

365 days are enough to change people’s perspectives, their ideologies. 365 days of undeniable strength, of determination. 365 days are no longer just a year.

****
August 7th 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.