Sammar Husam remembers gathering on the rooftop of the apartment building where she grew up in a mid-sized city in Iraq. She was just a girl, and she and the other children would watch missiles fall from the sky far to the north, mesmerized by the spectacle. Like many parents navigating the fallout of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, hers tried to shield her from the truth behind what she was seeing.
“My parents tried to make it look like fireworks,” she says, “to not scare us.”
She lived through the second Iraq war as a young adult, studying engineering by candlelight in pursuit of the degree that would eventually guide her to the United Arab Emirates—and later, to Canada.
During that time, she lost contact with her family for nearly 18 months, not knowing if they were alive.
Sammar’s story is one of perseverance, resilience, and an unimaginable test of faith. She has navigated the realities of war and the challenges of building a new life in a foreign country, but her greatest trial came as a mother, watching her son die despite every effort to save him from the tumour that strangled his brain.
Her sorrow remains fresh, though several years have passed. She rarely shares her story, yet it is the force that shifted her path from engineering to nursing, igniting a caregiver’s spirit that now enhances the lives of residents at The Village of Tansley Woods.
She honours the memory of her son, Taeem, each time she tells his story. In many ways, she believes, he is the angel who guided her here.
Sammar was pregnant with Taeem when she arrived in Canada. She had a toddler in tow, and while her husband was able to help her settle, he could not stay. It would be two years before he could join them permanently, and in that time, she slowly built a sense of community. She began hearing her language at bus stops and in neighbourhood spaces in Oakville, forming connections that helped her find her footing.
Her family grew – with a daughter born after Taeem – and in time, both she and her husband worked to re-establish their careers as engineers in Canada.
Then Taeem’s health began to tragically decline.
In late summer 2015, the symptoms appeared. By December, his older brother overheard his parents speaking with the care team at The Hospital for Sick Children. He told his younger brother, and when Sammar went to speak with her son, he was the first to find the words.
“Do I have a brain tumour?” he asked.
She couldn’t shelter her son as her parents had tried with her; she couldn’t disguise the missile of cancer as a firework.
What followed was a conversation no parent should ever have and a journey no family is ever prepared to endure. For 18 months, they faced chemotherapy, radiation, and long hospital stays. Sammar became the caregiver she had never imagined she would need to be, while her family struggled to carry on around her.
The nurses recognized her compassion and her ability to learn quickly.
All she could see was her son.
She remembers the fountain at SickKids that held wishes housed in coins, and what her son wished for as his strength began to fade.
“I wish no other kids get sick,” he told her.
He did not wish for his own healing. Instead, he wished that no other child would have to endure what he was facing. Even now, her voice breaks when she recalls that moment.
He died not long after, and the family has lived with the weight of that loss for nearly a decade. They each struggled in their own way, but with time, the path has grown a little more manageable.
Sammar turned her energy toward nursing. She spent three years fighting to be accepted into a program, holding onto what the team at SickKids had seen in her.
“Taking care of people… this is my big healing,” she says. “At the bedside… I found myself.”
For many people of faith, hardship can feel like a force that shapes purpose. In speaking with Sammar, there is a sense that her son’s life – and his loss – helped define her path.
“Maybe God puts you in hard times to test your faith,” she says. “He brought me to this field, and I feel like this is where I’m meant to be.”
