We Did Not Imagine You, Ali
On the last day of a recent trip to Jordan, only a few hours before I had to leave for the airport to fly back to the US, I had the opportunity to visit Walid, an Iraqi man who has cancer. One of my DAI colleagues accompanied me and translated for me. The purpose of our visit was to introduce ourselves to Walid and to assess his medical needs. But a surprise waited for me at Walid’s apartment, one that I hadn’t imagined, one that feeds my hope.
In Iraq, Walid lived in Basrah and supported his wife and three young children as a factory worker. When he began to have trouble controlling his left leg, he went to a hospital for an examination. He was told he had a brain tumor.
The symptoms worsened: and he began to lose the ability to control his left arm as well. He spoke with his wife, and together they decided he should travel to Jordan for surgery. This meant they had to sell their home and their furniture to raise funds for the surgery and treatment, and they had to borrow money from friends.
I wish I could tell you Walid’s trauma has a story-book ending — that the doctors in Jordan found the tumor in its earliest stage of growth, that they were able to remove it in its entirety without damaging Walid’s brain, that Walid’s prognosis is for a full recovery . . . but I cannot. What the surgeons found, I’m sad to say, was a highly aggressive form of cancer: within days of the surgery another tumor appeared.
I can tell you, however, that Walid could not have left Basrah in the first place without a companion, someone to both help him manage the roughly 700-mile trip overland, but also to care for him after the surgery during treatment. He could not have come without his friend, Ali.
When I walked into Walid’s one-bedroom, basement flat, I found him on a bed in the living room. Unable to walk, he struggled to lift himself up on one arm to answer our questions. It was there that I met Ali, who had left his wife and family to accompany Walid to Amman, who had left his job in the same factory to help his friend. I found this remarkable.
I found it even more remarkable when Ali told me that the treatment plan for Walid was three weeks of chemo and radiation therapy, followed by six months of chemotherapy. Ali would stay with his friend throughout. He would cook and clean for him, and help him to the hospital for his radiation treatment. He would sit and talk with him. He would stand with him facing the uncertainty.
So much of the mainstream media coverage of Iraq depicts Iraqi people as violent or downtrodden or vengeful. But based on my experience, there are countless stories of Iraqis who have made great sacrifices on behalf of others. Ali’s example is only one of these. Below is a poem I wrote after meeting Walid and Ali.
We Did Not Imagine You
We came as far as imagination would carry us:
this small, dark, concrete cell where Walid lies,
cancer colonizing his brain,
short-circuiting its electric, animal intelligence,
separating his spirit from the body it animates.
We did not come to see you, Ali.
We did not even imagine you: the shoulder Walid leans on,
the arms that carried him from Basrah to Amman,
the hands that make his tea, his coffee, his meals,
and even now, as you stand barefoot in front of me,
weary, unshaven, unknown outside this room,
a poor factory worker from Basrah,
I am stunned to learn you left family and work to accompany Walid.
The treatment plan, you explain,
is six weeks of chemo and radiation
followed by six months of chemo.
And still you stand here.
The room spins, the world falls away,
and when my eyes clear, Ali,
there is only you.
I am drawn to you as a plant to light,
hands to warmth,
migrating birds to that latitude and longitude
where life and love are supported.
I want to ask you questions I cannot ask.
I want to know you.
Instead, I say to Walid,
You have a good friend here.
Yes, he says,
the effort of lifting his head to speak costing him,
a single, pained syllable substituting for every gesture, every story,
every word he might have spoken.
