Never Lose Hope

Chapter Fourteen

            It’s two weeks after I find out about Amo Hamada, there’s nothing changing with my mood. I stay in bed all day, I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, every five minutes one of my family members would come in and try to force me to get up but I wouldn’t budge. My grades in school are starting to go down. I stopped doing my homework, I stopped paying attention to everything. Sometimes I feel like if I kept in touch with him this wouldn’t have happened. I mean I was his first child in a way. Even though he was in late 60’s he was like a father to everyone, but I’ve known him the longest. I was the reason he took other people in. I just can’t deal with this pain anymore. Sometimes I would flip out on the family for no reason. It’s their fault I’m in this situation. If they haven’t left me home alone that day, than I wouldn’t even have met him. I’m sort of thankful that I found a man as great as him. I overhear my parents’ arguing about me.

            “What do you want us to do? Drag her out of the house?” I hear my mom screaming. “It doesn’t work that way Maher. You can’t force her to forget the one person that was there for her when we neglected our child.”

            “I just can’t see her sitting there like that. She shouldn’t be going through this.” My father says back.

            “Well it’s our fault for not watching her that day. Why couldn’t we have brought her with us that day?”

            “Because our son was about die from brain damage. What could we have done? I know it’s our fault.”

            “I blame myself. If I stayed there with her that day while you took Jihad to the hospital.” My mother starts to cry and I just can’t take it anymore. This whole time I’ve been depressed for someone whose in a better place and here I am bringing my whole family down with me. I run into their room and hug my mom while we’re both crying.

            “Mama, it’s not your fault.” I cry out.

            “Yes it is.” She says through her tears. “I should have just stayed and watched you.”

            “I was sleeping, there wasn’t much you could do. How were you supposed to know the house was just gonna give in and collapse? It was an old crappy house.”

            “You don’t even know the story. Do you?” I shake my head.

            “Sara, sit down. It’s about time you knew the full story.” My father says to me.

            My father finishes telling me about that day, and I just stare at both my parents’ in shock. “So Jihad was shot in the head?” My father just nods his head sadly and I look at them both in shock. “I can’t hear anymore. I’m going to try to get to bed.” I whisper.

            I walk into my room and sit on my bed over thinking this whole thing. Turns out, when Jihad was six years old him and his friends were playing soccer in a field down the road from the house. There were a group of Israeli soldiers a few yards away, one of kids kicked the ball to hard and it hit one of the soldiers on the back. I guess they had a fight with the little kids about watching their back and they just start shooting. My father heard the shots and ran out to see what was going on, my mother followed him. That’s when they saw what happened. They both rushed into a cab to take them to the hospital. My mom told me she tried to call one her family members to come watch me and by the time she got there, I was gone along with the house. I don’t even remember that day clearly. All I remember is me trying to get out of that house and to this day I still think it was just a nightmare, but when I woke up every night in the camp I knew it wasn’t. I don’t even remember having a brother.