*~How the White Crystals Stop Falling*~

How the White Crystals Stop Falling


The night was silent. Too silent. This was not a good night, I knew. Something was coming, I could feel it. But I didn’t know when; only that it was soon. Too soon. I could already feel a distant pain approaching, yelling at the top of its lungs miles away. Was it trying to alert me? Was it telling me to do something I should’ve done? I couldn’t know for sure. And there was nothing I could do. I was no fortune teller. My only options were to wait and be cautious.

There was really no way for me to know that that pain was only a day away. 24 hours away. 1440 minutes away. Only 86,400 seconds..away. That I would witness a radical change in my outlook on life and happiness upon having to let go of a loved one too dear.


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He died on March 3rd of 2004 at 15 years of age. My brother. My only brother. With Duchene Muscular Dystrophy, he battled his way through life without ever objecting to what was given to him by birth. He remained strong all throughout his life, even when it became too much. He would always see me with eyes that held something ‘till now I cannot comprehend, for I am sure he would always wonder what it was like to move as free as one could. Having two legs and not being able to use them as he would like was something beyond my comprehension. Something I never deeply thought about, ‘till after he was gone.


Diagnosed at 5 years of age, he was unable to walk like most children his age. He could not move his arms very well, either, for he would strain at heavy movements. Every inch of muscle was weaker than kids his age, for that is what this particular disease does. It got worse as each year passed by, whereby his muscles weakened and weakened, until he was on a power wheelchair, constrained forever from the act of which we consider a given and permanent: walking.
I don’t remember seeing him cry the day he knew he would walk no more. He was brave and it was because he had great hopes in finding a cure someday. With all his troubles and worries, he was even more optimistic than I will ever be. I am still the pessimist I was years ago, if not more, that is.

If asked to think of three powerful memories of him, such would be difficult but not impossible. There is not a moment of him in my memory that I forget, or even try to. Good or bad. Because, that is all I have that is safe within me for me alone. Hence, I will try my best.


My first powerful memory is that of one day when we were in primary school together. Our father dropped us off to school and I had the usual “grown up” task of my tender years of nine, to hold his hand and walk him to his classroom as I did each morning. That day, we were quite late, and I hated tardiness like I did my vegetables then. I hated the feeling of being the center of attention in a not-so-great situation, such as being late for class. Whenever I was late, the teacher would glare at me and ask why I was not as punctual as all the other kids. It mortified me, and I knew I’d rather not go to school at all than face such embarrassment.


That day, I wanted to be no more late than I already was. In my haste, I pulled my seven year old brother, trying to match his pace to mine. In my own selfishness to get to class, I did not consider his own tardiness or his ardous struggle to keep up with me. So, his body could only react as naturally as any child with Duchene Muscular Dystrophy would.
He fell.

I cannot remember if he cried. Perhaps my mind is blocking out that part of the memory because I am already in tears as my fingers tread along my keyboard. I do not know, and I am afraid to ponder it, to be honest. I harbor many guilty memories within me that have to do with my brother, and I am afraid I will lose my composure as the guilt piles up. Yes, I have let go of some, but one cannot excuse him/herself too easily as people would advise. It goes against my nature, I think.
Upon falling, I couldn’t help but feel awful for and at myself. I turned and hurried to him, of course, grabbed him under the arms and lifted him up until he could stand straight.

“Are you okay?” I remember asking him in Arabic.

“Yeah “He responded quickly but quietly. He always wanted to be strong on the inside, to make up for his weakness on the outside.

He did not cry. I remember clearly now.
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My second memory is of our playing our favorite play station series, Final Fantasy. We had bought Final Fantasy X during the last year of our six year residence in Virginia, U.S.A., and finished it with great haste after our arrival in Egypt in the summer of 2003. The game was a journey to be remembered, just like its predecessor Final Fantasy VIII. Not because of the memorable characters or the enchanting storyline, but because of the conversations we always struck up while playing. I can honestly say that my brother and I got closer while we played video games; we did not usually talk a lot in our free time. I don’t know why, and this is definitely one of those guilty memories I still harbor. I feel like there could have been so much to say and know from and about him if I had made the effort. But I guess I will never know as much as I wish I could have.


It was that last day in playing the game that I remember so much, because we had reached the ending. For a girl like me, the ending was tormenting, because it was by no means happy. The main protagonist of the story, Tidus, had to disappear in to thin air and leave behind his love, the second main character, Yuna. Upon disappearing, Yuna had to go about her duties and be there for everyone and put her sorrows behind, knowing that this was fate and that she could do nothing more. The graphics made this much more realistic than it should have been, and being the oversensitive and childlike person that I was and still am, I cried. It did not help that after the credits were over, Tidus was shown to be alone deep within an ocean, and the cut-scene ended upon his reaching the surface in a bright white light, signifying a Part II which was in fact released about a year or two later.


What made this day memorable was that after all that was over, we both started at the TV screen for a couple of minutes, trying to take in all the events of the story and the ambiguous ending. I could tell he did not like it; not because it was poor, but because it was indeed gloomy. He and I admired the character Tidus too much, for he was not the usual dark and dismal hero of the Final Fantasy series that we were accustomed to; rather, he was the exact opposite: upbeat, cheerful and adventurous. My brother liked the idea of a loved one disappearing, real or imaginary, no more than I did. And I hated it, of course.

I looked at him with tearful eyes, my fingers getting to work immediately at my drenched face.

“You didn’t like it?” I had asked.

“It was really sad,” was all he said.

It took him another moment before he sighed and shrugged the pain he was not expressing like I was to subside; he then asked me to put in his next favorite game series, Metal Gear Solid II: Sons of Liberty. Another game with a dramatic story that I never could play as deftly as he did.
I couldn’t have known that this game was to be the game that was would be left inside the play station for me to find a few days after his death. Upon hearing its emotional theme, I remember I broke down and cried so hard, allowing myself to feel what I tried to block for what seemed like too long.
And that had not even been the beginning of it…
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My third memory is probably the most potent and sorrowful.

I was home alone, while my parents and my aunt’s husband took my brother to the hospital because they wanted to check up on his condition. He had caught a bad flu, and it was turning awry. There was mucus on his lungs and he needed to get it out; unlike a person without Muscular Dystrophy, he was not able to cough out the mucus whenever it bubbled up inside his chest. Therefore, he had to get it sucked right out of him in order for him to breathe properly and relax.

The fearful day was only a day away.

That night, I was doing my Algebra homework, while watching the Oscars, when the door bell rang. It wasn’t my parents or brother, but my uncle instead. He had come to see my brother and help us out if we needed anything. And it was a good thing he came by, because not a few minutes passed by, and the lights went out.

I hated the dark. And I hated being alone in it.

Thankfully, he stayed and kept me company, all the while talking about palm reading and the book about it, of which he had given me, but wanted to take back. It was against faith, he had informed me, and felt guilty about spreading it around. I didn’t get to read much of it, so I didn’t feel like I lost much. I didn’t really believe in those things much, anyway.

We spent at least an hour or so talking, before the door bell rang once more. Reluctantly, I got up and walked toward the door; something was not right. My mom’s voice came from behind the door and I yanked the lock back and let her through immediately. No one else was with her except my two little sisters Riham and Rowaida who were also being checked for the high fever they were both having.

My mom rushed in immediately throwing many demands at me all at once. She told me to quickly put on something to go down to my father and brother to give them both some extra clothes. Upon asking her the reason, she told me it was because they were going to book a room for my brother at a hospital, contrary to what one doctor had told us before after checking my brother’s case not a week before.

“I have an awful feeling about this. Something’s wrong” My mom’s forehead creased heavily, something she rarely did.

“Why?” was all I could manage with a fast beating heart.

“I don’t know” she had said. The silence that followed was deafening.

I hadn’t been panicking at all the whole time, not even when my parents said they were going to go to the hospital. But taking one good look at my mother’s expression, I began to feel an alien sort of feeling as I took the spare clothes for my father and brother.

I took a flashlight with me, and darted out the door, running down the two flights of steps and through the lobby to my father’s car. I saw the big white VW van parked in the middle of the road to my right with my father talking to my aunt’s husband. With each step I took, that alien feeling grew stronger and somehow louder; it felt as if it were screaming in agony and pain within, as if something horrid was already taking place.

There was no way I could have known anything, of course.

As soon as my father saw me, he took the clothes and said some things I cannot remember, or rather I was not paying much attention to him. I was concentrating on only one thing: to not cry. I nodded and said my yeses and no’s where they were needed and when that was over, I turned to my source of distress.Each step I took toward him, I felt heavier and terrified. It was as if my body and soul were asking the grounds to split apart and swallow me than face what was to come.
My brother was seated on his bluish-black wheelchair hidden within the van, with the door wide open. His dark eyes barely opened, resting as if he was finally ending a day of carrying the world’s burdens. I quickly put the clothes my mother gave me inside and stood to stare at him, from head to toe.

For a reason I did not know then, I was already starting to miss him.

“Marwan?” I asked softly. He opened his eyes and looked at me, his eyes straining to keep open. “ Are you okay?” My eyes started to tear. I’d never seen him so tired. At that moment all I could remember was one day during his flu when he had told my mother and I that he was going to die. I had told him to stop saying that. Looking at him where I stood then, I was not so sure of my answer anymore.
“I’m just tired” was what he had told me. I didn’t know what to say to that.

Sitting here now and looking back at his answer, it was as if he was really trying to tell me: ‘I have been through so much and being strong is becoming hard now.I want to find peace’.
I tried to think of something to say, but I was speechless. The alien feeling was carving holes inside me now and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I was afraid. I leaned toward him and touched his head gently, resting my hands there for a few seconds. Then my hands slid down to his left shoulder where I gave him an amiable shake, meant to encourage him to be strong. His eyes opened again and looked at me, and I think he tried to smile, but was too tired to do so.

This part of the memory is one of the guilty ones I still harbor. Because I wished I didn’t just pat him on the shoulder, but rather hugged him and kissed him goodbye. Because that was the last time I ever saw his little face, his innocent black eyes, his adept skill at maneuvering his wheelchair. The last time I heard him speak properly to me, talk to me.

The last time he looked at me. And had I known all that, I would have reacted differently. I would have held him and told him all the things I never thought of saying. Told him all the insignificant details of my life, and shared him some of his pain and secrets. I would have set aside my friends to sit with him more than I did, even if we would have talked about absolutely nothing.

But I didn’t know. And I was not to know, because that is how life goes. This is why they always say ‘ treat everyone as if you were to not see them tomorrow’; because, you never know when that last time is the last time. Although not one of us will ever be ready to say good-bye, it helps to know that things ended on a good note. It is part of ridding one’s self of guilt and inner torment and pain. At least that is what I believe.

Of course, time has a strange way of healing things. It really does heal. A bit, I’ll admit. It wasn’t easy going through my brother’s death, for so much changed for me. My views and outlooks on life, people and happiness changed radically, to the better I think. But I didn’t reach that calm zone until a few years after he was gone. Sometimes I wonder if I’m totally over it at all. The couple of times I had to stop while writing this for the sake of protecting my laptop from my waterfall tears is testimony to that. But, I don’t think I cry now because it is hard or that I object to what’s happened. No, I’ve definitely accepted what has come and part of the reason is that I am hoping and praying he is in a place where he can walk, run and even fly like the angels we believe in.

I still cry because I am not completely over the guilty memories, and because I feel like I have lost my other half.

But, I’m thinking he’s probably looking down at me and smiling, or maybe even laughing at me for each tear I shed. Because, sometimes when I visit his grave, I am able to cry and still crack a weak smile, as if I can hear him telling me that he understands why I am crying but that I need not be silly and do so. That I might not have considered that he is infinitely happier than he ever was in our mortal world. That his ending in life, of which he had no role in choosing, was happier than I or anyone else could ever imagine. That he is finally, finally and forever at peace.


And that is how the little white crystals stop falling upon filling my hands.