My Brother and Lemons

“Ibrahim! Habibi, just walk back to me. This way, towards the edge of the field. See? I’m pointing to it. Where the mud meats the dirt, right here. Come back, please . . .” I say, my voice breaking and arms outstretched. “Ibrahim, I’ll buy you some barazek, or some basbousa. Just walk back - I’m right here. Just move away from the field. You will be okay, insh’allah.”

Ibrahim doesn’t understand and blinks as he takes a step in the wrong direction.

“No, don’t!” I yell, but I act too late and must watch as my world is destroyed.

After the revolt, the crackdown, and the siege on Homs, Mama and Papa got caught in the crossfire of the Free Syrian Army, and sweet, sweet Zoulfa was bombed at the hospital. Ibrahim was too young to comprehend our loss and the heartache and guilt that has eaten away at my sanity for years now, because it was my job to protect him. An older sister should be able to shield her brother from the terrors of war, massacre, and suffering, and yet I have failed. I failed him, I failed Mama and Papa, I failed Zoulfa, and myself.

My world, like my favorite blue and gold hijab, has been tearing apart for years now, with the final threads of Ibrahim’s smile and laughter being the only parts holding it together. I told Ibrahim that if I ever didn’t come home one day it would be because I finally got to experience Allah in Paradise, or Jannah. I never expected he would meet Allah first.

It reminds me of a little 3-year-old boy in Damascus who, before succumbing to his injuries, said “I’m going to tell God everything.” I hope that’s what Ibrahim does. I hope he tells God that I haven’t eaten in 3 days, or that my pregnant neighbor was just shot by a sniper while buying groceries. That four of my classmates attending a protest were brutally slaughtered and left to rot. That my childhood best friend has gone missing. That Zoulfa’s husband, my brother-in-law, whose wife and infant sons are dead, is tormented every day in Saydnaya prison, praying for death instead of enduring hell on Earth.

I sink to my knees and let out a heart-wrenching scream of agony. He was almost 10 years old. He had not even lived 120 months before his dreams, aspirations, hopes, and life was stolen by malicious monsters void of humanity, hiding behind bullets, missiles, and mines. I hope the stars drown Heaven in tears tonight, weeping for the loss of an innocent life, a child, a brother, a person.

He was loved. So very, very loved, and yet was subjugated to violence inflicted by an inhumane regime overlooked by everyday people. Living under the constant shadow of death has blinded people into indifferent bystanders, watching as the killing of over 30,000 children occurs. Including my little brother, my world.

I remember after I would come home from school, he would beg me to chase him in the backyard or bring him to the nearest candy store. I always brushed him off, telling him later, later, later, later, later. Now, I don’t get a later. He had this little action figure of a superhero, Spider Man, I think it was. He used to say, “Watch me Leila! I’m Spider-Man,” and he’d jump around the house pretending to release spiderwebs from his wrists. I remember how he’d snuggle on my lap after we watched a scary movie, and how he always wanted to help me make dinner. He got top marks at school and wanted to be a soccer player when he grew up. I remember his smile and laughter because it was so contagious. The way he would light up a room when he walked in was always something I envied. His favorite color was green, his favorite animal was the kangaroo he never got to see, and he loved the smell of lemons, especially the ones from the tree in our backyard. He said there was something special about them - he could feel it. He said, in words so wise for his age, that the lemons are like the people of Syria, dusty and overlooked, but relentless. Yellow glimmers of hope in a desolate, gray world.

On Friday nights, if Papa came back early from work, we would sit on our brown couch that smelled of cinnamon and play games. I always beat Ibrahim in chess, but Zoulfa was the best at backgammon. Mama would bring out a tray of warm bread and Papa would tell us corny jokes he thought of at work. On Saturdays, we would visit Jiddo and Sitto, our grandparents, and talk about schoolwork and hobbies. I had lost all of that, but I took comfort in thinking I could keep my little brother. How foolish of me.

His name was Ibrahim Ali Katouh, and he was born in a hospital in Aleppo on January 15th, at 10:56 AM. He was my little brother.

As I sob on the ground I choke out “Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un - Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.” Ibrahim at least deserves a prayer. The only thing I long for now in my bleak and tried life is to see my family. I was not truly living after Mama, Papa, and Zoulfa’s deaths, but merely surviving for Ibrahim. Working and breathing and running and enduring for him. And the worst part is that no one will know. Aid workers or UNESCO officials might find a body or a grave and add a tally to their endless list, but no one except me will remember his favorite jersey or the smell of his shampoo or his piercing blue eyes. No one will know how much I loved him.

I make up my mind and shakily inhale as I limp towards my brother and into my family’s open arms. I refuse to be the only thing they leave behind, a graveyard of memories and emotions. Forgotten amongst the sea of souls searching for a home, a family, and a life.

It is not really the ‘horror of the shade,’ as said by William Ernest Henley, that I have come to terms with, but the light. We need not fear what is deemed as darkness, because it swallows and engulfs just as a bright light does. It caresses our deepest fears and cradles our innermost joys, just like an illumination of our souls would. I have decided that I will no longer call it the ‘shade,’ as who is to say that it is not light? What is the difference, if they have stolen my brother’s life alike? I guess that light simply sounds less daunting, less formidable. It sounds more like Heaven.

And so, surrounded by my family’s smiling faces and welcoming hearth, I follow Ibrahim into the light, into loving arms, to Paradise.