Pieces From The Crash

Its been a little over a month now almost 2 months really, my how time has passed. I have been to see the car and taken photos and gone past the site of the crash many times, it still doesn't seem real.  But this morning I was sitting loading some software for Quran and I realized that I will never hear his voice again, and started to cry.  I know somewhere there is video and clips of him with him chatting away like tomorrow will always be there but for now the house is silent of his voice.

A month has passed and he isn't coming home. He isn't at a friends house and he didn't go on a trip and will be back soon and slowly I have to understand and accept this. I went to see the car with Suhayl one day to look for some items that were not in the bag of things found from the car. It was daylight and full sun so there was no hidden place or darkness around to not reveal the impact of what I was seeing. A car in total devastation.  I looked around and bits and pieces lay all around the car and inside the car. Bits of electrical components smashed beyond recognition to only the pro would know what it was for. But I was looking for other bits and pieces. A lanyard that we had put state map pins on of the states we had visited when we went for his sister Rachael's wedding. Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Wyoming and I think one more but for now I can't remember what state. And the prize pin his #33 Patrick Roy hockey pin he got when he saw the Av's get the Stanley Cup. I looked everywhere in the car I knew I had put it in the glove-box but it was gone that and a set of Goalie Pad miniatures key-ring. I was looking for the car booklet that had his drivers licence and the papers for my car in it, gone. Some people will say they are trivial things, yes I know that but they held memories. I looked around the car at the devastation and I could not imagine him there. Maybe that is a good thing cause when you see the impact damage you wonder how anyone could survive. Your mind plays all those safety films you see in driver's ed class and those crash test dummy ones. Was he buckled? Probably not. He got lazy with this and I kept telling him, "Why are you learning bad habits. You know better and you should be setting the example." Would a buckle have saved him? I don't know only a safety specialist could tell me that and I don't even have a decent report from the doctors on his injuries to tell me if he could have been saved had he been buckled. This is why I keep wanting to know and talk to people who where there at the scene. Fill me in on what actually happened. I NEED to know. It won't change anything but maybe my mind and heart can move on. Its just one more piece I need to find.

Life has moved on. His father and brother Suhayl arrived a few days after the funeral and I remember their arrival. They didn't come with a blare of horns common to arrival of people from a trip but to the silent shutting of car doors and small soft voices saying they are here. His sisters crowded ahead of me and the girls and gave their hugs. I finally saw my husband after almost 10 months and I could not even cry and hold him or my son. It was a brief hug and let them in so they can come inside and talk a bit then come upstairs and rest its been a long trip and 23 hours layover for them just to get here.
Weeks have melted now and we have shed tears, talked and discussed many things but there is still a hole in our lives. A few weeks back we went to look at land for purchase. See just the night before I was sitting with him planning house designs trying to decide how much land we needed for our dream houses. As I surveyed the land I stood and cried. My husbands cousin asked why I was crying. I told him, "My son, this was for him and his brother and sisters. What use is this to us if we have no one to share this with?" My daughters will marry they will move to their husbands homes and build their lives in other places. Suhayl doesn't want to live here so what do I need for him a flat is enough for him. So who am I buying this for?  He told me that morning of the crash as we waited to see the doctors for Aieysha he and Suhayb talked about homes and designs. He told me Suhayb wanted to study Architecture and design his own home. He was finally settling down and planning a future.

So here we are two months down the line. Not much has changed and for awhile much won't. But it seems like I keep trying to find bit and pieces to put together the puzzle and I keep asking God what plan does he have for me that he needed my son to be taken from me? I'm in dispute with family on my husband leaving us here while he returns to the USA to finalized our life there and in reality everyone seems to think they have the solution when they have no clue. In a Middle Eastern world women don't do well without men regardless of the age of the man we seem to need them. Yeah send my 7 yr old for bread cause you know its safe to do that here while back in the USA he could not walk down the street to the local market without raising a few eyebrows. Maybe that small southern town people live in or if the store is next door or across the street but not like here walk about a mile stand in line with other men chatting away while they wait their turn for filling their bread baskets.

Now our only solution is to ask Suhayl to stay behind a bit, give up a semester of schooling for helping his mother and father settle in a land that he doesn't want to even be in. Khadijah still asked to go back and we are considering it. I know the reality of things and I for now don't want to even think of the possibilities but it seems like God has his plans. Is tearing my family apart one of them? Is this what we were destined for? Contrary to news life here is safe and secure at least so far. Let me say its just as safe as anywhere when God said its your time.

The other day we went to a farm with a local family to take some quiet and rest. The wife and I walked around the property looking at the fruit trees she had planted and looking for her chickens and she asked me,"Did Suhayb ask you not to cry when he died?" I told her yes. It is something we all believe. Did not Sidi Omar Muktar say to us "From God we come to him we must return?" So if God gives us then its his right to take us is it not? So why do we cry for someone who has died? Has he or she not returned to his father his creator? We only borrow them for awhile. I don't cry for them I cry for those left behind who must live without them. I think she understood. My only regret was not having time to see if he would have been compatible for a transplant to help his sister. That weights heavy on my mind some-days and hers too. Maybe with time Libya will start donor registration and give life a chance to others. I still want to do something useful here. People keep saying do this or do that but what I still think God is waiting for something more important from me. For now all I can do is keep looking for those bits and pieces and trying to fit them back into what was my life. Its not a puzzle that can be tossed away because you lost pieces, you have to cut an fit new ones to fill it in.