Have you ever feared that feeling? Have you ever felt that something terrible is happening right now, but you don’t quite know what it is yet? And then you wish you never find out. You feel a slight numbness in your extremities and your head, terror of something approaching that you haven’t grasped yet.

This is what happened when my friend came by with his car to take me home. He told me something had happened in the neighborhood but assured me everything was fine. I wondered, why did he get out of the car at the checkpoint? Why did he whisper to the soldier and he let us pass without any checking or questioning, with just a fleeting glance at me?

My family isn’t answering their phones. At the village entrance, people gazed at me, then quickly looked away to avoid any eye contact. Have you ever felt like this before? I hope your answer is no.

Ten years after that day, I’m now in Sweden, without wings. I took the place of my two brothers who were supposed to precede me, then I was to follow. But fate didn’t write that for me; instead, it always wrote a different story than what I wished for.

Since childhood, I had wished to have siblings like other kids, not just to play with or to break my loneliness, but to stand by me. As I matured, I realized our financial status. It saddened me and put upon me a responsibility bigger than myself, helping out with household expenses. I spent much of my childhood with this responsibility.

This was the case until that day in 1995. I remember it clearly, by date and hour. It was one of those rare days when I felt life had listened to me, to my wishes. It decided to be generous. I got not just what I had dreamt of, but even more. That day, as I stood by the house door, my father walked in, with my newly born brother. Then my grandmother entered with the other one. Two? Yes, two. Oscar and Aleko. My brothers, my twin brothers, arrived together, and I called them my wings.

Because of the age difference, I played a parental role to them. Each day, I built a new hope upon them. I saw my wings grow. We started playing boys’ games. Every time I arm-wrestled with them, they became stronger. I would rejoice in my loss to them because I knew my wings had grown stronger, and someday we would all fly together.

In 2011, the war began in Syria. Bullets, killings, and death became daily news. I felt the responsibility for my family’s safety, but this time I wasn’t alone. In 2013, my brothers and I decided to move to Sweden. The plan was for Aleko to go first, followed by Oscar, then the rest of us. From then on, we began to dream of a better reality. The dream seemed closer to reality when Aleko put a travel date.

A week before his travel, he visited me at my workplace in Tartus. We talked a lot. We planned our days ahead. I felt we were talking man-to-man. They weren’t kids anymore, and my relationship with them was no longer parental.

That day, I had prepared a surprise for my other brother, Oscar. Feeling guilty he wouldn’t be traveling with Aleko immediately, I had bought him a pair of expensive white Adidas shoes with two red stripes. He was overjoyed. The plan was that he would soon follow Aleko. My wings would soon take flight. I’d miss them but be at peace knowing they were safe.

Having them made life easier even amidst the war. Together, we would get out of our financial struggles, and our dreams would become more tangible.

Today, I’m in Sweden. They never arrived. All I have left of them is Aleko’s shirt, which I keep in my wardrobe.

Going back to that day, I screamed at my friend, “What happened?” “A missile hit our street.” They tried to assure me that everything was okay, that my brothers were taken to the hospital and that we just needed a blood bag. In my denial, I started arranging for the blood bag, refusing to believe that they were just trying to let me down gently.

As soon as I reached the neighborhood, the smell of blood mixed with burnt flesh overwhelmed my nose. People were gathered, my parents utterly devastated. But I didn’t fully comprehend the tragedy until I saw Oscar’s Adidas shoe thrown aside in a large pool of blood. “We don’t need the blood bag anymore,” someone said. My wings, as they had come on one day, I lost them in one day.

Looking at my father, the man I wished would never bend, I saw him shattered. I ran to him, but another neighbor, who had lost his only son days earlier, was already holding him. In my attempt to console my father, I mentioned the neighbor’s loss, unintentionally deepening his grief. Sometimes, in our shock, we unknowingly amplify the pain.

After the funeral, death didn’t leave us. I decided to move my family out of the village to my workplace in Tartus. They lived with me for a month in my small room. However, they couldn’t stay longer and wanted to go back home to mourn. A week after, they were involved in a car accident. Only the driver died. When I received the call, rage engulfed me, even towards God himself. “Why, God, why?”

They were fine with minor injuries, but I couldn’t fathom life’s absurdity or how society tried labeling them martyrs. I do respect the holiness of martyrs, but for me, they were more than just a social or religious status, because by trying to glorify the loss of our beloved, the weight of our grief upon them is forgotten. They were my brothers, my wings. They never wanted to die; nor for an idea or for a case. They had live, and from my perspective, they were just innocent people.

I know this because I sometimes visit their Facebook pages, go through their photos, our conversations, and their comments. They were alive! And they never wanted to die.

I traveled less than a year after the incident. While in Greece, waiting to move to Europe, I remembered my brothers on their death anniversary. I was traveling alone, and in my bag, I had kept Aleko’s shirt, which should have been here before me. I reached Sweden and managed to create a decent life for myself, my parents, and my sister.

Later, I returned to Syria once. Always dreaming of visiting my brothers’ graves, I wanted to tell them everything that happened after their absence. I sat by their graves hoping to feel close to them. I sat for a long time, told them about everything, my parents, my kids, and my problems. The paradox was that I didn’t feel any close. Was it because they were still in my heart, closer to me than their graves? I was never convinced of our social ideas about visiting the dead in the cemetery. My brothers were alive within me, I held them inside of me and left the cemetery and continued living in Sweden.

Today, 10 years after the story, I no longer remember them every day. I remember them in specific moments, with certain dishes, certain clothing styles, but the pain remains the same. One day, I returned home to find my wife cleaning and getting rid of some old things we no longer used. She had gathered them in a large bag, intending to throw them away. She asked if I wanted anything from it, and I replied “No”. As she lifted the bag to discard it, I caught a glimpse of Alyko’s shirt inside. I exploded, shouting at her. Poor her, she didn’t know it was my brother’s shirt. She apologized, and I realized the pain still burns deeply within me.

People tell me I seem harsh, with my deep voice and the deep furrow etched between my brows. I tell them: “Tell me what you’ve lived through, and I’ll tell you who you are”. Life hasn’t trained me to be joyful. I’m not harsh, but life has been harsh with me. It shaped my face, and then etched deep lines on my skin. Today, I might not participate in a joyful occasion, but it’s impossible for me not to be present at a funeral. I’ve come to feel people’s pain and understand the importance of being there for each other. I’ve learned that without those who stand by us, we wouldn’t recover from our tragedies. Today, I don’t leave anyone in pain alone. Thus, my face tells my story: a man who gained two wings in a one day, and lost them in another. I’m a man with deep furrows on my forehead and only God knows what’s in my heart.

The fear that something terrifying might happen still haunts me. I’m afraid to father a boy who might remain alone. I fear coming home and calling out only to hear no reply. Even though I’ve traveled and am now far away, I fear loss lurking behind a phone ring, around a corner, or at the entrance of a neighborhood.

In the end, not all losses are the same. Today, if I were to share something I’ve learned from this long journey, from my lengthy relationship with loss and war, I’d say:

“If your family hasn’t been harmed, congratulations, you’ve won the war.”