A life, a friend lost in Iraq's ruins

\o7The writer is an Iraqi reporter in The Times' Baghdad Bureau. His name is being withheld for his safety.

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\f7baghdad -- "Have you heard from Mohammed-Ali recently?" my friend Sami asked me over the phone.

"No, I think he is out of the country," I said. "I have been trying to call him, but his mobile has been out of coverage."

"Mohammed-Ali has passed away," Sami blurted out. "He went to Egypt, and he died there of a heart attack. He was buried there as well."

My immediate thought was not to get too emotional, so as not to upset Sami any further. He is in his late 60s, and he already has suffered two blood clots in the last year that probably were brought on by the stress of the sectarian violence creeping into his neighborhood.

"We keep hearing about the deaths of people we know, don't we?" I said, sadly.

"Yes we do. This is life, and we have to accept it," he replied. "Mighty God, who would have ever thought he would die there?"

I quickly changed the subject, and even made him laugh at the tricks that I and the girl I love have been playing on each other.

After we finished talking, I tried not to think about Mohammed-Ali's death too much, afraid I would get no sleep that night. I needed all my strength to face the new day in Baghdad.

The next morning, I was relieved that the commute to The Times' office took only about 50 minutes. Usually it takes twice that because of the traffic jams caused by checkpoints. I had enough time for a breakfast with friends from another news organization in the building.

Yet, grief for my friend was building up, and I was flooded with memories of him.

Mohammed-Ali was a great man. (I won't mention his last name. I don't want to put his family at risk.) He was a navy admiral from a proud military family -- the son of a general, the grandson of a general and the great-grandson of a general. He spoke good English and Russian, in addition to Arabic, and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world. He was sensitive, and this made the 60-plus years he lived more difficult than usual.

He was also a great friend. I was pleased to have a person like him to talk to, most of the time in English, about my problems, dreams and our shared interest in modern technology.

I still remember him saying, "Where the hell have you been?" after not seeing me for a while. Now I wish I could have spent some more time with him.