If life is but a nightmare... This is mine...

It was Five pm… I was done with my classes and ate lunch… It was the time I usually got in my car and headed to my daily destination… I entered the building and my soul felt darkness… It was the same darkness I felt every time I stepped into this gloomy building… I despised every corner of the hallways I was passing… It felt like I was walking for a lifetime.. No matter how short the hall was, it was still too long… I wanted to reach there faster… After the two longest minutes of my day, the door was finally within sight. It was the same door that disclosed both the happiest part of my life as well as the part that was going to ruin what was left of me… Forever…

I took a deep breath, mustered up hardly any courage I had, and entered the room…
He smiled, that beautiful smile… Even though he had lost all that weight.. He was still the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on… I kissed his forehead and gave him a soft hug, soft enough to avoid hurting his fragile body. I took out some cream, spread it on his legs, and began to massage them… He was too drained to speak.. All he could do at that crucial time was nod and smile. Suddenly, he broke my heart into tiny little pieces…

Him: baba… tadren shkether 7asanat g3da taaakhtheen al7en?

Me: yubba! Enta tadre eni a7eb ahamzek…

Him: (looking at me.. Smiling.. His eyes tearing up… staring at me… as if to memorize my features) Tadren ena entay mn bdd khwaanech.. Ur identical to me… entayyy neskheti…. You’re everything that I am… You’re everything that I wanted to be…

I went to hold his hands… He looked at my sister… Who was holding his other hand… silently crying…

Him: (talking to my sister) entay kentay ajmal shay shefta eb 7ayatii laiman enwaladtay…

Sister: (breaking down) yubbaa laaatmoooot!! Allaaaaaahhh ykhaleeekk…

He smiled… Looked at us both… Kissed both our hands… he was smiling that smile… That smile that told us not to worry… That everything was going to be okay… That he loved us more than life itself…

My sister left…

Me: yubba… You have to fight… Lazem you resist it…

Him: (he smiled and his eyes said it all… It said that even though he was terrified… it was time to go…)

Me: yubba tell me what you’re feeling?

Him: ta3baaan…

Me: Do you feel that you’re going to die?

Him: (he nods..)

I slept every night… Resisting any negative thought. He was going to live… He was going to be alive… He was going to be there like he promised… Then a month passed… And he lost his ability to speak… We communicated through nods and smiles and cries and sighs… We eventually decided to let him write what he wanted to say… My siblings and mother were next to him.. We were kissing him and joking around… He took the pen and wrote:

Bssssskum kisses…

Me: Ma tabiii nbooosek??

He wrote: Hahahahaha

He was Joking!!! We burst out laughing… That was SO like him…

He was falling more heavily asleep… He began to sleep a lot… The days were so scary… The nights were so hopeless… All we ever wanted was to hear his voice… One more time…
Unexpectedly, on a Tuesday afternoon while he was sleeping… He called my mother’s name….

Him: 7ayati…

Mom: (shocked and hurriedly went to his side) 7abeeeeeeeebbi….

Him: deeray balech 3ala banati…

Mom: (a tear drops on her cheek.. For the man who was her everything for the past 34 years)

Him: 7abeebti…

Mom: ya 7abeebii amer!!

Him: bacher ana weyachh.. Bnetqada bro7naa.. Abi *********** (his favorite dish)…

He was speaking in his sleep… He wasn’t even able to eat or drink anything for the past three months. He lived on the IV drips. Wednesday morning, I woke up at 8 am… I wasn’t in the mood to go to my morning class.. Since I was ditching, I decided to go to the hospital. It was the first time in three months that I went there at that time in the day… I kissed his forehead… Read him Quran.. Asked him if he wanted water. He nodded… I helped him drink the water and kissed his cheek…

Me: Love you;* (he smiled)

Faj2a…. All my siblings came to the hospital… They all weren’t in the mood to go to dawam…. The doctor came in, checked on him… Looked at us…

Doctor: You all understand how hard this is for me to say… But you all wanted me to say the truth… Since the beginning… Your father has entered a coma.. His body will move… His eyes will open… It might seem that he’s listening to you.. But he’s not… I’m so sorry…

One minute my dad was there… The other minute he was gone… (In a coma)

Everyone came to the hospital… All my uncles, cousins, father’s friends… For he had forbidden them from the burden of seeing him in that condition… I went home at 11 pm… Though I didn’t sleep, I closed the lights and lay there… blacking out anything that could SUGGEST I live my life without my dad!

Brother: wake up.. Wake up…

Me: Shesaaalfa??? Esa3aa chammmm??

Brother: Esa3a 2 el fayer… yalla bawadeech el Mustashfaaa..

Me: Uboooy fee shay????

Brother: laa bss ta3ban…

I reached the hospital… Went upstairs… I knew it… He was gone… I passed the images of my brothers, cousins, uncles…. Kanaw met’lathmeen.. Bss their eyes stabbed my heart with poisonous daggers… A flashback of my childhood with my dad… Our long talks.. Our memories… The hugs… The kisses… The protectiveness… The sense of completeness… The walks… and mostly… The existence of the most amazing creature that ever lived… My beloved father… I held him one more time… I couldn’t cry… No tears were going to escape the prison that my body had became… I kissed my peaceful dad and whispered into his ears one last time…

“You will always be the number one man in my life…”

I sent a msg to one of my best friends: He’s gone…

No longer than two hours later… They began to arrive… My best friends… They didn’t speak a single word… They were just there… I laid and placed my head on my friend’s lap… I closed my eyes and found no words to express how I felt… For I had lost a piece of me when I lost my dad… A piece that left when he left… A piece that won’t ever come back… A piece that made me who I was… But I knew that everything was going to be okay… “el 7emdela…” I say… Because Allah ra7 e3aweth…