A Hero

http://mybrothersvoice.wordpress.com/

"Every family needs a hero." Stephen says, his voice cracking with emotion.


We sit in my parent's family room, hanging on his every word.


This is the motto he lives by.


He asks us to look into his eyes, for in his eyes you can see into his very soul. And this is where we will see the many faces that he carries with him. The faces that drive him to share his painful story with anyone that will listen.


He lives to give them a voice.


He smiles, through his tears, because they would want him to.


During our conversation, he frequently looks up to the heavens to talk to his beloved older brother. He seems to check in with him, as if he's making sure that he is telling their story correctly.


He doesn't miss a detail as he begins with the first day they arrived at the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, as a 13 year old boy. The stench of burned flesh repelled him back into his train car, and ashes fell like black snowflakes from the giant ovens that destroyed millions of prisoners deemed "worthless" to the Nazis.

He recalls the shock of witnessing a Nazi shoot and kill his uncle, right in front of his eyes. And, before he could recover from that loss, how he watched while his infant cousin was ripped from his aunt's hands and brutally murdered. Only to see that same aunt killed, while trying to protect her baby.


He tells us how this gruesome murder had them so traumatized that they didn't notice as their Mother was taken from them and forced to another area of the camp. They never got to say goodbye.


They would never see her again.


Still, Stephen would fight the evil that held them prisoner. He calls himself a "part-time prisoner", explaining that he would tell himself that his days at Auschwitz were only a nightmare. And at night, when he could finally close his eyes, he would escape to his dreams. In his dreams, his family was safe and happy. In his dreams, he was free.


He willed himself to survive, if only for the sake of his brother. He would die if he needed to, to keep him safe. He would fight off a solider who raised a large piece of iron that was meant to crush his brother's skull. He fought, and he won.



He would risk beatings to smuggle extra food in for his brother. He took those beatings, and his brother had food.



He would risk death to find his brother when he went missing from their barracks. Only to find a blue-eyed, skeleton where his beautiful brother once was. Stephen prayed to God that his brother might live.


"I ask nothing for myself. But please, God! Save my brother!"


He died in Stephen's arms that day.


All of this he wrote on a makeshift diary, that he again, risked his life to keep. It was his only defense against his captors. He would not let them take his words. He would live, if only to tell his brother's story.



Every family needs a hero.



A hero who thinks nothing of the pain or anguish they may be feeling, but who instead serves tirelessly and loves unconditionally. A hero who fights with every last breath to protect his loved ones. A hero who walks through the valley of the shadow of death, and thanks God that he has legs to walk through it.


Stephen Nasser is that hero.


"I beg you," he pleads, "Go home and hug your family today. You don't know what I would give to run into my Mother's, my Uncle's, my brother's arms. Be the hero that your family needs."


He gets quiet for a minute, and I watch as the tears begin to well up in his eyes.



"Better yet, give them two hugs. Tell them the second one is from me, because my family isn't here to hug."

Stephen Nasser

My hero, my friend.