Fidaa’s friends show kindness is our biggest source of strength
IN THE High Court in Glasgow, Fidaa Sammour has been sitting through the murder trial of her husband and father to her four children.
The allegations are sickening – that security guard Mohammed Abu Sammour was punched and stamped on and a van was reversed over him.
Fidaa has been sitting quietly and with dignity throughout the case but it has been hurtful and distressing to hear the details of her husband’s awful injuries and his dying moments.
But in the midst of such grim inhumanity came an act of much tenderness, as row after row of the court’s public gallery filled with women from the Muslim community to sit with Fidaa in solidarity.
Thirty women, graceful and distinct in their hijabs, sat around her, an embrace of humanity which said she was not alone.
Such whispers of kindness are a soothing balm in a world so at flux, where the political parlance of aggression has compounded divisions growing deeper by the day.
Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day and we all know that kindness can lift us when we haven’t the strength to do it ourselves.
When the ground below us feels so shaky, the simplest of niceties are steadying and they happen all the time, if we choose to notice.
This morning, I drank my coffee looking out of my kitchen window and on the sill was a box of nasturtiums my friend Kate planted while I was on holiday.
She had replaced the nasty weeds and wild grass with colour to welcome me home, along with the milk, bread and eggs she had bought to save me the job.
Today, like every other day, carers are looking after my mum, cutting her sandwiches into little triangles, bringing her cake they refuse to be paid for and hugging her hello and goodbye.
They do so much not listed in their employment contract, just because they are gracious and thoughtful.
Her cleaner makes her tea as she goes about her day and sometimes peels the potatoes to save the carers the task.
And my friend John is on speed dial for a loaf or fish supper to save me the 70-mile round trip, while the mother of my friend from childhood makes her homemade dinners, like my mum used to before she no longer could.
This week, the guys from IT and security scoured the building to find me a battery for my car key and colleagues brought me tea and soup when I was swamped and knackered.
A few weeks ago, my friend Paul sat in my house and separated all the coins I had piling up in jars and took them to the bank and handed me over a hundred quid.
He was also the person who turned up at my door when I was recently grieving, ignoring me when I told him not to bother because he knew I needed him even when I said I didn’t.
In times of grief, people can come to the fore. My friend has suffered miscarriages and in hospital she’s given a little butterfly, which a jeweller delicately fixes to her charm bracelet for free, to acknowledge the loss.
When another friend’s mother was dying, she was dropping off rubbish at the dump and realised she had thrown her car key into the mire, so the worker there dug through the smelly waste and found it for her.
I have had friends park food in front of me when I have been heartbroken and could not eat.
I have journalist friends who phone me on a Tuesday when I am stuck for ideas for a column and will read a piece I am uncertain about.
My school friend Vivien cuts my hair and talks me down when I have slept in for an important meeting, lost a crucial document or I just need to talk.
In such cynical times of flexing muscle, kindness can be dismissed as weakness.
But as the women around Fidaa demonstrated, it is often our greatest source of strength.