Never Give Up

Never Give up

In the fall of 2002, I made my entry to the 5th grade. The first day was really special because all my friends were gathered except my best friend. It was really weird that he did not come; it wasn’t his habits. When we got back to class, we had the misfortune to hear that the Youssef’s father died the day before. It was an emotional shock for everyone, and every one was whispering “did you know about this? Was he sick? Did you talk with Youssef yesterday?”. At the end of the day, as soon as I finished the course, I went to see him to present him my condolences. His family was there, everyone looked sad, everyone was in mourners, but Youssef was completely under the shock, he did not realize yet that his father was dead. It was the beginning of a long and terrible week.

On my arrival at Youssef’s home, the first person I saw, was his mother's crying, and dressed all in white. I went to see her and present her my condolences. When she saw me, she shook me hard in her arms, her hands were shaking, you could feel the strong beats of her heart, and saying it was too hard for her and she cannot bear the situation, I tried to comfort her as best I could. Then, I went to see Youssef in his room, he greeted me normally as if nothing had happened, but I you could see in his eyes that he did not realize what is happening is true. So I talked to him a little and tried to find out what it is in his mind. After a few minutes of discussion with him I realized he was not going well at all. The evening, almost all of our classmates came to see him, and many of them have brought chocolates, candies, and toys. At that time he began to ask questions to himself, then he began to realize the situation. Since, he began crying, it did not stop until the end of the night. His behavior became more and more bizarre. As his best friend, it was my duty to spend the night with him to comfort him and try to make his mind off things. He cried that night until he fell asleep. That night, I couldn’t sleep, Youssef made many nightmares, it was horrible to hear what he was saying in his sleep, and it looks like he was really mentally disturbed.

The next day, the moral state of Youssef prevented him still to go to school; however, he did not go to school all week, and I, at the end of each day, spent my day at Youssef’s home to keep him company and make him forget things. We were playing video games, we were going outside to play football with the neighbors, it was pretty cool, and every one was supportive. I was very concerned about his behaviors, so I told my parents, they called Youssef’s mother and advised her to take him to a psychiatrist. Actually, he suffered from some mental disorders, but which are cured by time.

Finally, the week after, Youssef came to class. Fortunately, he had a perfectly normal behavior, he was smiling, and he was speaking with everyone as usual. I was really happy for him, but nobody knew how to deal with him or how to talk to him. Then we all agreed to make him hearing all what could make him happy, to be very nice to him and especially not to broach the subject about his father. Sometimes, the teacher asked him for information about his father or what he was doing, but Youssef could not answer, he suddenly changed the subject. In the classroom, we could see, he could not concentrate over time, Youssef obtain results worse and worse.

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