A vision that brings back the memory of Kuwaiti Hassan Al-Failakawi after 25 years of losing it on American soil

It did not occur in the minds of Kuwaiti citizen, Hassan Al-Failakawi, that he would someday be the hero of a story stranger than fiction that is suitable only for a novel on which the events of a movie are based.

The story of Hassan, who was born in 1969, began when he completed his university studies before heading to the United States in 1996 to enroll in an English language institute in preparation for the resumption of his graduate studies.

Hassan booked a ticket to California, where a friend of his is residing, set the duration of the trip to 5 days, which he saw was sufficient to present his papers to the Language Institute, and then returned to Kuwait to await acceptance of registration.

But the unexpected happened: Has an suffered a head injury before submitting his papers as a result of an accident that he did not want to reveal its causes or explain its details, as he is still suffering from its effects to this day.

He had a good memory, forgot everything related to his past, and he no longer even remembered the location of his bag which he deposited his passport, all his identification papers and his university degree.

Complete forgetfulness

Hassan forgot his name and did not identify himself and who he is, nor to which country he belongs, and because he is on American soil; The authorities were there only to classify him as an illegal immigrant, and he obtained an ID with that.

Hassan’s Arabic language was enough to encircle him from the Arabs who were illegal immigrants, most of whom were of Iraqi and Moroccan nationalities, and they called him Hassan Hassan.

Hassan was on his face in search of his day’s sustenance, and he only found work as a day laborer in the construction and urbanization sector, and he continued to do so for years.

These circumstances did not discourage Hassan, so he continued his studies at a language institute, and later passed the university level exam. Advertising

And because the mathematics subject that he obtained his degree from the College of Science at Kuwait University stuck in his mind and subconscious; He passed the exam, and later obtained a master’s degree.

Hasan became a teacher at a college in California. But with a cut salary, he did not own a house, and in 2005 he met an American girl and married her.

Hassan formed a family and his wife stood next to him, and she was his refuge from the stumbling blocks of time, and the many harassment he was subjected to on American soil, and he had two sons and a daughter.

Knocking on the doors of Arab embassies

During these years, Hasan worked very hard to find his identity, so he knocked on the doors of Arab embassies, hoping to find in them who would answer his questions: Who is he? To which land does he belong?

In July 2020, he created an account on the social networking site “Twitter”, hoping that he might find what he wanted, so he searched for the name “Hassan Hassan” and whether there was a family with this name that he might belong to, but all his attempts were unsuccessful.

Dream of Meshary Al-Balam

With the beginning of the year 2021, Hassan saw in his dreams his childhood friend on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka and a colleague of his studies at the university, the artist Mishari Al-Balam – may God have mercy on him – to restore this vision of Hassan to part of his childhood memories.

Hassan hurried to Twitter, using the search button for the name “Mishari Saleh”, by which he knew him without his family, “Al-Balam,” to be shocked by the news of the passage of 3 days after his death.

During his reading of the accounts, which presented the obituary to the late artist one by one; He was stopped by the account of his brother Muhammad al-Failakawi, so he flipped his image over and over again.

This photo returned to Hassan 90% of his memory, to recover with it the place where he had hidden his identity bag, to rush to it, and to find himself again. https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Q9ngmNfO20?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=ar&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Start back

Hassan hurriedly went to the Kuwaiti consulate to tell its employees his story, and to begin preparing for his return trip to the homeland in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Concurrently, Hassan sent a letter to his brother; But he did not receive any answer, which prompted him to check the list of his friends on Twitter, and to find the account of his son Jassim.

Jassim was a companion in the path of his uncle Hasan, who was only two years older than him, and he joined him during his university studies.

Jassim – who tells Al-Jazeera Net the full details of the story – was astonished when his eyes fell on a message from his uncle telling him that he was still alive.

Jassim, his uncles and all of their family members have been searching for him for years and years, and they have not left a door without knocking on him for help in finding their uncle, whose news was lost until they thought he was dead.

Jasim recounts that he did not believe that his uncle Hassan was on the other side of the phone due to the horror of the surprise. His Iraqi accent, which he influenced by his friends, increased his suspicion that he was being exposed to a “prank”.

But Jassem’s suspicions dissipated when his uncle reminded him of minute details that they gathered together, to make sure that his interlocutor was none other than his uncle, Hassan, and now all the family members were preparing hours and minutes to receive the present absentee.

Return trip to Kuwait

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior facilitated the return of Hassan and his family, and only his brother and three sisters could receive him at Kuwait International Airport, in compliance with the health precautions imposed by the Corona pandemic.

Hassan and his young family are currently spending the institutional quarantine in a Kuwait hotel waiting to return to the arms of the large family, just as he returned to the embrace of his motherland after a 25-year exile that was like two wives for him in light of the loss of his memory, to start a new chapter of his life; But this time without his mother, who died in 2020, and until her last moments kept repeating his name, and she assured those around her that her feeling as a mother tells her that Hassan is still alive.