Everything
comes to an end, even a precious life such as that of my brother George who
succumbed to a long battle with Alzheimer.
Ever
since he was a young boy, a friend of the family who was good at reading
people, used to tell my mother in Arabic: “George has a white heart,” which
translates into: “He is free of malice, and always ready to help others.” And I
knew that for a fact.
Two
years older than me, taller and athletic, we were in the same school as boys in
Djibouti. And no bully tried to mess with me because they knew who my brother
was. He had taught a couple of them a lesson they never forgot, and they left
me alone. He was always there to help and protect me when I needed him.
Later,
in our late teens, we were in Egypt and he looked like Omar Sharif before
Sharif had become a superstar. An ordinary actor, Sharif was invited to appear
in a television talk-show. I attended that show with George, and the camera got
a glimpse of him before Sharif had entered the studio. And the people in the
audience turned around to look at him, thinking he was Sharif. For a moment, I
too felt like a celebrity.
But
the story that tells me George is in heaven happened in Djibouti. A car rental
agency had imported one-seat, three-wheeler Messerschmidt cars that looked like
the cockpit of an airplane. George rented one after school and made the mistake
of driving it into the empty courtyard of the school. Christian Brother and teacher, Leon who was as
aggressive as they come, took the keys of the car and told George he was
confiscating the thing because he wasn't supposed to drive it in the
schoolyard. This being a rented car, it represented a big problem.
It
necessitated the involvement of my father who managed to resolve the matter.
The following Monday, when we went to school, we saw a hole in the wall of the
administration building. Everybody knew what that was. Brother Leon who also
served as a reservist in the French army was learning to drive the military
Jeep that used to come –– driven by someone else –– to pick him up and take him
to the military base for training.
So
there he was, the man that gave George a hard time because he drove a car in
the school courtyard without incident, seeing his pride wounded for being so clumsy,
he drove the military Jeep into a wall on a weekend.
This
is what tells me someone up there has been looking after George, and gave him
the Justice that he deserved. For this reason, I know that George is up there
in heaven doing what he liked the most in life: Playing soccer.
I
hope they have good teams of soccer-playing-angels up there, brother George.
But if not, you have a whole eternity to teach them.