Hakeem, My Bro.

My Brother, Hakeem, that’s his name. It means Wise in Arabic, he truly is Wise. He was 10 years old. He passed away in his sleep on the 26th of January; he suffocated by putting his face on the pillow. It was like a S.I.D.S. which stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, only he was a child. He breathed in too much carbon dioxide because his face was against his pillow. Normally the brain would automatically tell the head to move, but for some reason he didn’t move. At least that’s what the doctors said. They also said that it happened at about 3:00 a.m.

It was a regular Saturday morning; my dad took me to a soccer game in Ogden. We were on the way back, when my dad said “Ibrahim, we have to take Hakeem to horse back riding lessons.” This was in Park City. Then I said “Nooooo. I don’t want to go with you guys, I want to stay home.” Now I wish that I had wanted to go with him. When we got home, I went into my brothers’ room one of my brothers was awake (Yusuf, who is 7), but the other one (Hakeem) was still sleeping (so I thought) on his face, Yusuf was sleeping right next to him, and every time Yusuf is always last to wake up. It’s usually Hakeem that wakes up first, so I say “Yusuf, Hakeem’s still asleep?” and he says “Yeah.” I then say “Oh.” And walk out of the room. I go into my parents’ room to play video games, and I hear my dad go in there and say “Wow, Yusuf you’re awake before Hakeem?” Yusuf says “Yup!” So he goes to wake him up he touches him (He told me what he did after this) and his arm is rock hard and ice cold. He says “Hakeem?” Then he turns him over, and I hear in a scream, in a high pitch voice, but worse, a cry of pain. “HAKEEM WHERE ARE YOU? MY POOR SON WHERE ARE YOU” And I thought “What? What do you mean, where is he?” Then I hear Yusuf scream. Scream like I’ve never heard before. It was painful, the screams were. Then my Dad ran to his room to get the phone to call my Mom who was at work, I ran in to my brothers’ room and my Dad screamed “YAR (which means buddy in Urdu the language of Pakistan) DON’T GO IN THERE!” But I, being my disobedient self, went in. I walked up to Hakeem who had not woken up to the screams and turned him over. He was smiling, eyes closed and asleep, only thing wrong was his face. It was dark dark blue. Nearly vomiting, I ran out of the room my Dad screamed call 911 although he already knew where Hakeem was, and he wasn’t with us. I called 911 and I was too shocked to cry. I then gave it to my Dad. Then Yusuf came running down the stairs screaming. I tried to comfort him by saying come here and hug me, but my legs fell apart and I collapsed. My Grandma came in and said “What’s all the commotion?” I told her “There’s something wrong with Hakeem, his face is all blue!” Right after hearing that and without her seeing Hakeem she burst out saying, in a wailing sound “OH GOD! GOD WHY! OH GOD! OH GOD! GOD WHY!” I heard my Dad on the phone “DANG IT! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU!? HIS BODY IS ROCK SOLID. CAN YOU PLEASE SEND SOMEBODY!?” They must have said yes because he hung up. About 2 minutes later I saw a man in a police uniform running to our house while carrying a bag and when I saw the man it brightened my hopes. I opened the door and said “Up stairs, far room, to the left,” and he ran up stairs. When he got up there Yusuf and I were sitting down crying. I thought to myself that this was just gonna be another close call. I imagined Hakeem waking up and gasping for air and crying and saying “Daddy” but I heard no voice of Hakeem. All that I heard was the bed shaking from the mans’ CPR and everyone else crying. The Shaking of the bed stopped, and the man came down the stairs while shaking his head.
Well that’s really all of it.

Just something I thought was very wise of him was that the day before he died, my brother Yusuf was joking with Hakeem and said “I will never die.” Then Hakeem said wisely “Yusuf, everyone has to die” Couple hours later he died. Yusuf, My Dad, and I witnessed death first hand. I wish we didn’t.


Ibrahim, Quraishi