While this isn’t meant to be a commemoration or anniversary, as the subject is as solemn as it was then, I’m mentioning it because I was taught by a loved one once that the things Allah takes away, He can give back the same and better. It sounds hard to believe but it’s actually one of the truest things I’ve learned. Lest I even think about letting this lesson slip, today is a day that stands witness to why I’m the last person who should ever forget it.
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Many individuals undergo life-changing events, incidents, and conditions and make it through. It could be challenging diseases and disorders, significant injuries, or other kinds of setbacks. And often these people describe their experience as a second chance at life. Similarly there are people who have lost someone, something, and been given it back again. I’m here writing from that end:
I woke up one night to the phone ringing over and over, determined not to stop until I got up. I answered it in an irritated tone assuming it was some work-related call of my dad’s in the middle of the night. This was pretty common at our house. But that night, it wasn’t those calls. It was Security, informing me my parents had been in an accident and want me to come see them. I was awake in an instant, frantically asking if they’re okay. I changed into jeans and walked through the house with all the lights on, realizing I had been the only one here for the past few hours. Three police cars were standing flashing lights outside, the reds and blues dancing about the ground that glistened wet from rain. An unmarked car among them took me in and I rode to the hospital.
I suppose my stoic demeanor is useful at times, because as I sat in this car I half wondered if this guy really is from Security, or if I’m being kidnapped. At this point there was nothing to do though, so I continued to sit waiting to see what’ll happen.
We arrived at the ER and my dad was in the Observation area. I fell into his arms and started crying. His words were: “These things happen, Sana.” His friend Mr. Wafiq was also standing nearby. The doctors led us to my mom who was lying on a stretcher in another room. She was barely conscious, saying she’s thirsty and telling my dad that her stomach hurt a lot. I took a few steps back to gauge what was going on in front of me and went a little numb. The doctor took us out into the corridor, and spoke to us about the operation. His only words I remember now are “It is critical.” It’s one of the only two times that night I was actually scared.
They discharged my dad and we walked out of the ER through the wet parking lot. He was barefoot—not sure anymore what had happened to his shoes. And he seemed to be in pain. Mr. Wafiq dropped us home and we walked inside the house. I looked at our home seeing and feeling what life would be like if my mom wasn’t in it. This is the second time I was scared not only that night, but in all the years I’ve lived.
My dad took a seat on the light blue sofa chair he always sat at in our TV room, again in what seemed to be obvious pain. The first thing I went to do was undo my dad’s bed so he could go to sleep, but when I asked him to he replied “No, we have to be there for Ammy.” I was 15 and couldn’t drive. And he wasn’t in the condition to. I told him “Let’s call someone.” “Who will we call?’ he asked. I said “Yasmeen Antie.” He didn’t resist and instead of arguing it, agreed right away. I dialed her number at what was now 2am. I told her what happened. She said she was on her way.
I went to pray 2 rakahs namaz in the hallway outside my room, and in that time my mom’s friend was already at our door. She drove us to the hospital and we accompanied my mom upstairs. My dad seemed to be in more and more pain—his neck was hurting from whiplash I supposed. But my dad has high tolerance and endurance. I had never seen this kind of expression on his face before.
I found myself caught in a film scene. Because of his pain, my dad was walking three times slower than I was. And ahead of me the stretcher with my mom being rushed towards the Operation Room was going three times faster than I was. I kept hurrying towards her, but then slowing down to turn back and see if he was okay. When we got to the prep room, we were able to meet my mom for a few seconds. As tears streamed down my face, Yasmeen Antie spoke to her loudly and clearly saying “Nighat, you have to fight okay. You have to fight for Tariq, Kamran, Sana.” My mom looked at me and silently shook her head telling me not to cry, and in she went.
That left the three of us, my dad, Yasmeen Antie, and me. And then we met our fourth: Ned.
‘Who is Ned’ is a question we ask ourselves till this day. The Operation Room was located in a long, everlasting hallway on one of the higher floors in the Aramco hospital. The same hallway also had male and female waiting rooms. We couldn’t do much but sit in those small rooms, or on occasion stroll the hallway outside. Once or twice I passed by a door that opened to the outside, an outdoor AC or furnace area of some sort where an individual in blue scrubs sat. He seemed to be on break I guessed. After some time had passed, my dad had been in and out of his waiting room too, trying to find some comfortable position to be in. We tried and tried to convince him to get reassessed downstairs, or tell the doctors of his pain but my dad wouldn’t budge.
The individual in blue scrubs approached us after a while, and told us “I’ve been watching this man and the look on his face says he’s in extreme pain.” He introduced himself as Ned, and explained that they’re sick of him at the hospital because he picks on mishaps and things that are going wrong. Certain that my dad wasn’t checked properly, Ned insisted that he go back down to Observation. Today I’m famed as being the person who can convince my dad to do anything, but that was an era where even I had no such powers. After much coaxing and persuading, somehow Ned succeeded the impossible and he agreed. My dad disappeared down the long hallway and onto the elevator going down.
A couple of hours later my mom was still in surgery, but Yasmeen Antie and I were going home for a bit. We went down to Observation and found my dad fast asleep in a bed, and I physically felt weight lifted off me. I felt so relieved that my dad was finally getting rest. It’s all I had wanted since this night began. Later we discovered that Ned was right and they had been a bit sloppy in the ER. During that return to Observation, they found three fractures in different places—his knee, his rib, and his spinal bone in the neck that was later said to be a lifelong injury. That’s the one that was causing the excruciating pain both Ned and I saw on my dad’s face.
On our way out, Yasmeen Antie and I mentioned to the nurses that we met Ned upstairs and he had sent my dad down here. The staff in Observation looked at each other puzzled. They said no one named Ned worked up there. We never saw him again after that.
At 5am I stepped out of the Emergency Room into the parking lot for the second time that night. Yasmeen Antie dropped me home to get a little sleep. I did the only thing that still makes sense to do in a time of difficulty: I called Khala Ammy in Chicago. And then I fell asleep for three hours. Yasmeen Antie picked me up a little before noon to take me to the hospital again. My mom’s surgery was done, and it was successful. When I went to meet her, she was heavily under anesthesia. The nurse had to yell over her saying that her daughter was here. All my mom could do was barely lift her hand, and that meant she acknowledged me. I left the room and began crying seeing my mom this way. Again Yasmeen Antie was there to tell me I have to be strong.
The next few days were tough. When I went to see my mom in the ICU, her face was so swollen, I couldn’t recognize her. When I called my brothers, they asked me what my mom was doing, and I realized they hadn’t been told the full details or knew she was in the ICU. I responded that she’s asleep and left it at that. At that time, family wasn’t permitted to visit as easily. My aunts or uncles couldn’t come. My brothers were at college across the world. For a moment it must have seemed like I’d have to do this alone. But I didn’t.
I believe when you have a child, it’s such a big deal and blessing because parenthood is born inside you. After you have a child of your own, you can’t watch someone else’s on TV going hungry or being oppressed, because you see your child in every other person’s child. Becoming a parent is so significant because you gain the ability to love every child like your own. In the time of this accident that year, every parent we knew in Aramco became my parent. One Antie would drop me to school in the morning, another one would pick me up at noon and also arrange lunch for me. All of them sent tons of food, came over, helped us with anything we needed.
It took me three full days to recover from everything and become myself again. After this happened Monday night, even though things were okay, I didn’t smile or feel alive until Thursday, only because of the condition I saw my mom in. Several days later when my friend came to see my mom—a friend who rarely showed emotion—I was surprised to see her in tears after she exited the ICU.
It was weeks before I knew the full details of the accident—that their car had skidded in only a tiny bit of rain and broken through the thick, metal bar barriers in the island divider and bounced off a palm tree. Then it had spun around and the broken metal bar had jabbed into the passenger door where my mom was. This had broken her ribs and one of those ribs punctured her liver, tearing it into pieces. It was around 11:30pm, when Dr. El Swais, a surgeon coming back from his call was going home and he saw the car and called an ambulance. He returned to the hospital and operated on my mom that same night. The doctors later reported she had had a 30% chance of living.
It’s painful to write about this even 20 years later. The yellow metal bars remain removed from the Rolling Hills island divider still today. My mom’s scars remain on her forehead and stomach. I have pictures of that car, but I don’t show them to anyone. I usually don’t retell this story even. But today I’m writing it for two reasons. One is what I mentioned at the start, that God can give us back what we love the same and even better and I’m one person who can never not believe that.
And the second reason is that I want every person who was with me in that—Mr. Wafiq, Barey Mama, every Antie and Uncle who prayed for my mom, every family member who prayed for my mom, for the team of doctors in our family friends that was surrounding my mom when she woke up in the ICU, every person who visited my dad and me when we were alone, every teacher, every classmate, every friend who supported me with even a word of acknowledgement, and lastly the persons I don’t even have words for: Yasmeen Antie, Dr El Swais, Ned—to know that whether it’s one year or twenty, I will never forget what you did.