Omar Nouh – Nou7y – Miro – Niazy Sameh
I’ve delayed this as much as I can since I can never really talk enough about Omar. I sat next to Omar on the same desk in the 2nd grade. I’m a leftie and he’s right-handed and we always crashed our elbows together. I don’t know if it never occurred to us or if there was an actual reason validated by our 7 year old brains that made us not switch places so we wouldn’t crash our elbows together. Omar has always been annoying, that’s a fact I think everyone who ever knows him will tell you. But the fact is that in the 2nd grade, he taught me to say “El7amdulellah” after sneezing, and that he was never annoyed by me when I called him daily to get the math homework.We were rejoined in class in 5th grade or prep school, I don’t remember exactly, but we weren’t friends then for some reason (maybe I was too cool for him :P ), just colleagues, up until he got into IGCSE and I went to secondary school and we were still “just colleagues”, up until he went to medical school and I went to the faculty of engineering, that was when we started getting a bit closer as friends, but more as distant friends than actual pals.
Up till I graduated from college, the most important thing about Omar to me was the sneezing thing. Then came my breakup. I was stunned at how supportive he was. I definitely didn’t see it from people who seemed closer. It was like we kept our friendship on hold in some wine cellar, and like fine wine, it only got better with age. He was always keeping up with everything Dina, always asking, always listening, always supporting. He can be funny, serious, understanding, and completely full of himself! But he was there more than anyone, and I was grateful, and still am.
Omar has this “knight in shining armor” air about him; he likes to be the hero. Hell, he is the hero sometimes; he helped put out a fire in the hospital he’s stationed at. He thinks the medical occupation is a mission to save lives. He believes that helping give birth to a newborn baby is being part of a miracle. Sometimes I’m not sure if he’s crazy, living in his own world where heroics made sense, or just born in the wrong century. He never ceases to amaze me with that and I am grateful there are people like him still in the world.
One particular situation I’ll never forget was when he was there for me in a moment of extreme self doubt. He wasn’t the usual type of supportive: “you’re great and amazing and lovely so start feeling better so you get off my back” type of supportive. He was you’re great because you did this and said that and been there on whatever. I am not a person that believes words of flattery, but at that moment it wasn’t, it was facts, pure and simple, that got me to see a side of me that I had forgotten about. He took me from extreme depression and hysterical crying to a confident smile for quite some time. The thing is, Omar doesn’t know how to flatter all that much, he has a very raw way of talking to people and he seems to always say the truth, at least from his point of view. So if he thinks it, it’s got to be true in some way. So here’s a very big thank you for reminding me of who I really am.
No, he’s not an angel or God’s gift to women. Omar, like anyone else, has a dark side, literally! When e gets upset, he goes into his cave and no one can reach him. When something upsets him, he is UP-FREAKING-SET! I don’t know if he goes down easily, but when he’s down, he’s down hard. He’s a bit of a dramatic person; he makes mountains out of ant hills (mole hills are actually bigger issues), he throws himself in his “I’m very down” mood that sometimes I think it’s impossible to even try to reach him. Maybe it’s my problem; I don’t know how to be there for him, and maybe it is him, in all cases, I wish he wouldn’t do that because it really hurts me to see him upset, and to feel so helpless at helping him while he helps me so effortlessly.
To sum up, Omar is chivalrous, a hero, sometimes with Peter Pan’s forgetfulness of the big bad world out there. He is a truly empathic to everyone around him. He is honest to himself and to others with his opinions. He can be annoying lots of times, a nag, and one helluva depressed guy. But he’s always a pleasure to talk to and hang around with even if it for the sole reason of feeling that there are still good people in the world.
P.S. Omar's the only one who called me a bad ass, and it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me :)
wooowwww, just woow
ReplyDeletetthis article just reminded me of someone i once knew once ago and yet he was the same type of support
Chapeau to all good friends all over our life.
i miss my old friend.