Suzanne Barakat - Deah, Yusor and Razan

 

10 months ago to the day on December 27th, my brother Deah got married. 23 at 6’3”, a basketball fanatic, he was a second year dental student at a top dental school in the country at UNC Chapel Hill. His bride Yusor Abu-Salha, who had turned 21 the day prior, had just gotten into UNC Dental School. They were excited on this new journey that they were going to be taking together, remodeling their new apartment. I mean, it's pretty awesome that a spouse and their couple, whatever, can get into the same school, right?

 

The morning of his wedding, he's his typical happy, go lucky self. He's so chill that he's taking a dip in the hotel pool while everyone else is figuring out what to do on the day of the wedding. He asks me for the honor of combing his hair. Pretty sensitive thing, I think, for a guy on his wedding day. Anyways, I was honored. By the end of this evening, I'm sobbing uncontrollably. The mothering big sister in me, half proud, half-- I don't really know how to explain it. I was just sobbing.

 

Just a couple years ago, he was an obsessed basketball kid, and I couldn't get him to focus on his studies, and now he found this lovely, amazing local hometown girl to call his life partner. He found his love in the field of dentistry. Him and Yusor were planning to go on a trip to the Syrian-Turkish border to provide dental relief to Syrian refugees. They were committed to projects locally feeding the homeless, you name it. 

 

As I was crying, I had excused myself to a corner of the ballroom. I didn't want to upset anyone, and people were dancing on the dance floor. But Deah caught my eye and he rushed over to me, opened up his wide arm span, and he buries me into his chest, and he rubs my back, and he rocks me back and forth, and he calms me down. And in that moment, I realized just how proud I was of him. I let him off to go back to the dance floor, do his thing, and a family friend comes up to me and says, "Hey, relax. Why are you crying, like, this is the last time you're ever going to see him?"

 

Fast forward six weeks later, it's February 10th. I'm on call at UCSF San Francisco General Hospital writing a prescription for Clinda, and my phone starts blowing up with text messages from God knows who. Very general. I have no idea what they're saying, thinking that maybe it's related to family members in Syria because of the ongoing conflict there. I have tons of extended family there.

 

A couple hours later, that entailed many frantic phone calls, more times than I can count of vasovagaling onto the hospital floor and wiping it clean. This is SF General. You don't want to do that. I'm at the gate, and I get the confirmatory call from my brother Faris, saying that they have confirmed that Deah, his bride Yusor of six weeks, and her baby sister, who was keeping her company in their apartment, were murdered and confirmed dead on the scene.

 

There's no Wi-Fi on the plane. By the time I'm boarding the plane, my brother tells me they're thinking it's a hate crime, but we have no idea what the heck is going on right now. By the time I land in North Carolina at 09:00 AM or 10:00 AM, the suspect had turned himself in and the police had released a statement saying that the murders were stemming out of a parking dispute. [sobs] It's never easy talking about that.

 

Several police investigations later, autopsy reports that eventually come out, and we learn more about the sequence of events. Deah had just gotten home from UNC. He was a 10-minute bus ride from school. He'd gotten off the bus, taken a picture with his classmate wearing the same jacket. Came home, and Yusor and Razan had made dinner. They were eating dinner, and the neighbor knocked on their door, proceeded to fire at Deah.

 

Multiple shots. Went back towards the kitchen area. One shot immobilizing Yusor by shooting her in the hip, coming back into the back of her head, lacerating her midbrain. Not my words. The autopsy report. The single shot to the back of the head goes on to Razan, who is screaming for her life. An execution style single bullet into the back of her head. On his way out, finishes Deah off with one more bullet to the mouth for a total of eight bullets, two lodged in his head, two in his chest, and the rest in his extremities. 

 

To perform something so vile, so gruesome, so wicked, requires acute dehumanization at the minimum, hatred that is deep and well rooted. As the days passed by and interviews went on, I realized, looking around me, despite having been born and raised in this country, that the climate that we're in, one that allows public figures no matter where they are in the political spectrum, from Ben Carson to Bill Maher, to sweepingly bash Muslims, undoubtedly played a role in fueling this hatred. 

 

I can't stand here in front of you today and say this is never going to happen again. History repeats itself. The only nevers I have in relation to this experience are with Deah, Yusor, and Razan.  I will never know his warm embrace again. The last time I ever touched him was in his casket, taking my fingers and combing his hair the way he liked them and kissing his cold, lifeless forehead. Thank you.