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The moment the world was silent

Three years ago on this day today, a young woman left this world behind her and for that moment, the world stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Stopped living.

Three years ago today, the value of her laughter became much more important than it ever was before. The house she lived in lost the force she had in it, lost the warmth and happy memories she had created as she played cards with her younger cousins, watched comedy movies, and repeated The Beauty and the Beast 1500 times.

Three years ago on this day, her family told us a girl had left this world. But I don't know if this girl was the same one I knew. The girl I knew had a laugh that echoed through the skies, loved Fayrooz, and drank Nescafe coffee like it was water.

The girl I knew would've never wanted people to feel sorry for her. She would've never wanted to spend the last days of her life hooked up to machines as people looked on. The girl I knew would've wanted relief. She would've wanted to fall asleep next to her grandfather in the land of their homeland.

They described someone who was tired to me. Someone who was breathing final breaths, someone who others doubted her strength. The girl I knew had done this before and would do this again. She would fight until there was nothing left to fight.

She did fight. She fought until she could fight no more.
She left and left us with mixed feelings. She made the tears that we shed over people moving to another country seem silly. She made people tell me to be relieved for her. But she made that hard.
How do you think of her family, and the days you spent with her, and all the jokes you won't hear from her anymore, and find a way not to be sad?

Three years later today, I believe that we have all found a way to feel comfort in knowing she is done fighting. But we can't forget that silent moment the world had when she first left after a long, hard battle with an illness that robs people everyday. That moment when the world stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Stopped living.

Maybe we all hoped we'd hear her one last time.

R.I.P Hadeel.

-Wishful Dreamer

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