I have known my dear friend Hamed since I was a Junior in High School and he was a Sophomore. He has always been an amazing friend showing love and always keeping in touch. He lives with his mom and dad and brother, wife and daughter, and his sister. Not because they have to, but because they want to. Every time I have come into their household they greet me with open arms and treat me like a prince. They ask me “How is your family?” “How is your Mom?” They actually ask me, how is my family. This is the only people I know who do that. I have never started a conversation with someone with that being the opening sentence. “How is your family?” They value family like no other. They taught me that there is still goodness in family, that it can be tightly knit. That a family can live with each other even when the kids marry, because it is just better that way.

My friend Hamed had fatty deposit over his temple that caused him to stop driving and had occasional dizziness. He has battled it for years and finally got surgery done on it this week. I went to visit him today. It drained me. I was taxed when I walked in. I have such issues with hospitals. They represent death, sickness, recovery, surgery, scary things showing our mortality as we walk this earth. When I walked in to his room, his family was there. Just standing and sitting around as Hamed recovered. I didn’t even recognize my friend at first. I saw this man, in a gown, with a frankenstein bandage around his head, and half his face was droopy like he had a stroke. He had a white hair beard starting, he couldn’t stand. He was recovering. He was surgery. He was real.

“Hello my friend, please sit next to me…”

The family moved aside, let me sit in a chair that had been placed in front of him, to face him, by the window.

“Hamed… you made it, you did it… I am glad to see you.”

“Thank you for coming, it means a lot. How are you? How is your family?”

Damn, can you not be thinking of my family right now? He is real. It is part of his bottom line interaction. He just, cares.

“Look at me man, I am bruised and cut…”

He looked down sort of sad. I didn’t realize, this was very hard for him. It was taxing on his body, and he felt out of control, at the mercy of the hospital and us. He went through 13 hours total of surgery. The original surgery was on Monday, it lasted 8 hours. When the surgery was done, Hamed’s left side of his face was completely droopy. the doctors were afraid they cut a nerve. They convinced Hamed to go back under for round two. After much reluctance, fear, and just “cmon-I-am-worn-out!” he let them do it. Two things happened for the 5.5 hour round two. Hamed wears a hearing aid, the doctors put an implant in his ear, since they were in that area, eliminating the hearing aid. The second thing was, they found they stretched the nerve, but not cut it. It would heal in time, and so would Hamed’s face solidify.  I think that is awesome.

Me and his dad were talking, and Hamed interrupted us…

“Did you pray for me man?”

“Yes.”

I did.

His dad mentioned that ultimately, God was to be thanked for Hamed’s surgeries and He worked through the hands of the surgeons. Damn right! It was nice to be talking about God and healing, recovery and redemption in this place of fear for me, the hospital. A Muslim and a Christian, throwing their labels of religion away, just talking and praising God’s ways and healing. I look forward to spending eternity with them. I wonder if every time I see them, they will still ask about my family? I hope so.

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