A year is not enough for your absence, Haitham Al-Zubaidi

At this exact time last year, Haitham Al‑-;---;--Zubaidi was counting what remained of his days and hours, as if touching the edge of time with his fingertips. And one can only imagine the pain of a man waiting for his own death with full awareness —knowing the countdown had begun, and that life, the life he clung to stubbornly, was retreating step by step.
He would call those close to him, no matter how far they were, and say:
“Come so I can see you… this may be our last meeting.”
He wasn’t asking for company as much as he was asking for a witness—as if our presence could delay the end a little,´-or-make it less cruel.
Thus the eternal decree drew near after five years of resistance that astonished even his doctors. Five years in which Haitham negotiated with death the way he negotiated a complex idea: calmly, firmly, and with a hint of irony that concealed a deep, private fear.
And on the seventeenth of May 2025, he waved goodbye without lifting his hand—because it had become too heavy to lift.
Today, a full year later, I relive that moment as if it is happening now. I said then:
“I will need a long time to learn how to live without him… and I may never succeed.”
A year has passed, and I discover I have learned nothing.
His absence still wakes me on New Year’s Eve, when a note from a song he loved strikes the air—one he always asked me about. So I wrote about my dead friends at the end of the year, as if Haitham were testing my endurance, reminding me that friendship does not end with death--;-- it simply begins a new chapter of longing.
And the questions keep piling up before me:
How does one learn to live without a friend who was part of his inner voice?
On the day he died, I wrote:
“O death, there is not enough left in the heart to bear the bitterness of your wounds as you steal those we love.”
Today, a year later, I realise those words were not a farewell, but the beginning of a long sorrow that has not ended—and will not end.
Haitham… the one who does not repeat himself.
A full year has passed, and I still hear his voice asking me:
“Karam, when do we retire?”
A simple question, yet today it hurts more than anything else.
Because we did not retire.
And because death decided to reach him before we did.
A year has passed, and I miss him in ways that exceed the capacity of tears.
A year has passed, and I am still learning—without success—how to live without him.
Haitham was not just a friend.
He was part of the journey.
Part of the awareness.
Part of the argument.
Part of the language.
Part of the heart that no longer resembles what it once was.
Haitham faced death the way he faced life: with noble silence.
In his final days, he hid his pain the way a writer hides his first draft—unwilling for anyone to see it before it is complete. He always warned me not to tell anyone about his illness.
He knew life was abandoning him early, yet he did not complain.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not ask for anything.
Then he left everything behind.
All he wanted was to see the faces he loved, and to leave a small trace of his silence in our hearts.
He used to tell me:
“No one hears us when we keep shouting.”
And so he chose silence in his final days, as if teaching us one last lesson:
that true farewell requires no words—only presence.
Peace be upon you, Abu Omar.
Peace be upon you, Haitham…
Peace upon your patience, your wisdom, your noble stubbornness, your quiet pain, your smile that hid more than it revealed.
Peace upon a full year of absence that has failed to convince us you are gone.
Peace upon the space you left in the heart—a space no one can fill, no time can soften, no forgetting can reach.
A year has passed, and I still write to you as if you will read.
A year has passed, and I miss you as if you left yesterday.
A year has passed, and the same question haunts me:
How do we live without those who were part of our lives, our language, our awareness, our very selves?
Peace be upon you, Abu Omar…
If only you knew how much I have changed since you left.
Peace upon the absence that has not departed.

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