SAMA

  As doctors, we are entrusted with the sacred privilege of caring for other people's bodies. We learn the science. We master the procedures. We carry responsibility in our hands and decisions in our minds. We care deeply, or at least as deeply as our understanding allows. Yet there is a distance between witnessing suffering and inhabiting it. We prescribe medicines whose bitterness we have never tasted. We order injections without feeling the needle pierce our own flesh. We do not know the struggle of swallowing tablets that linger painfully in the throat. We observe pain, measure it, and document it, but we do not always understand how it can twist the stomach, steal one's dignity, and make every breath a battle. We speak of dependence as a clinical reality, yet we rarely comprehend the helplessness of needing another person for the simplest of tasks. We acknowledge the connection between body and mind, but we do not truly grasp how a failing body can cast shadows over the so...

Tonight, after a long and weary shift, I walked slowly through the hospital car park toward my car. I was the last to leave, and for once, I welcomed the solitude. I welcomed the silence. Only moments earlier, I had been surrounded by noise, voices, alarms, footsteps, endless movement — and then suddenly, I found myself alone on a path swallowed by thick fog, where the world seemed softer, quieter, almost unreal. On the drive home, I lowered the car windows despite the cold breeze. Soft piano melodies filled the air while tiny droplets of mist settled gently upon my face like healing balms. The dance of lights and shadows along the empty roads held my weary soul captive, as though the night itself was trying to comfort me. It was a beautiful way to unravel the heaviness of the day. And now, as I sit before the fireplace, staring into its endless glow while writing these words down, I feel a quiet sense of peace — knowing that somewhere amidst the exhaustion, I was able to ease the suff...

  I will not say, “I thought of you that day,” for you are the quiet flame that never leaves my mind — not in the hush of night, nor beneath the wandering light of day. And if this is not love, then why does every path I walk lead only toward your image? Why does the world grow distant whenever your shadow enters my heart? I cannot breathe in a life where you are absent. I cannot imagine a dawn untouched by the warmth of our love. And oh, how my soul longs for the moment when we are no longer two separate beings, but one living body, one ancient tree of love — its roots deep within eternity, its branches reaching across the world, offering the sweetest fruits to every wandering heart.

  For those who may not know, electricity in Lebanon has long stood as one of the deepest wounds of corruption. Billions vanished, yet people were left with barely four hours of power in an entire day. Beyond that, families had no choice but to surrender to costly private generators — a luxury far beyond the reach of struggling students like us. This is one of the very few photographs I still have from my years in Medical School. My housemate took it on his old Nokia phone, teasing me as I sat studying by candlelight. I kept the photo, not out of embarrassment, but because it became a quiet monument to perseverance. I would light one candle at a time, carefully making each one last a little longer, stretching every flicker of light against the limits of a painfully small budget. Today, when I look back at this image, I truly do not know how I endured those years. But perhaps that is the nature of purpose. When your eyes are fixed on a mission greater than comfort, hardship stops be...

  (From news.com.au) Hannah's parents lost everything when their healthy nine-year-old suddenly died after complaining of aches and pains. Life’s pathways are plagued with hidden land mines; we walk them never knowing which step may awaken sorrow beneath our feet. And perhaps the cruel paradox of love is this: Every attachment becomes a quiet deposit into the unseen treasury of grief and longing, where joy and suffering forever grow side by side.

  She lay on an uncomfortable emergency department bed, striving to remain composed despite her condition. Cradled in her right arm was her six-month-old baby, while a chest tube inserted in her left side, left her in significant pain and unable to move. In the months following her delivery, she had endured a persistent cough, which ultimately led to the diagnosis of a lung tumour requiring a major surgical intervention. Between her voice interrupted by shortness of breath, her husband’s struggle to hide his tears, and a doctor who knows what is coming next, her baby was sleeping on her chest, enjoying the warmth of a fading woman. This child was living the moment, not knowing that the world around him is collapsing… How many times I want to be like this child… just live the moments of life, not knowing what is happening next.