We were 13 months apart. I only knew a year of life before he was born but I have no recollection of it. My earliest memories all involve him. My future plans and goals involved him. I’d never thought of life without Rami. I was the older one but people often thought we were twins. We had this bond where we knew we were there for each other and more importantly we knew we loved each other. Rami was amazing — no matter what our circumstances were, (there had been times our family struggled), Rami could find ways to make the best of things.

When he passed away, I didn’t understand. How could I lose my baby brother? This isn’t the order of the way things go. His pale lifeless body laying there, my mother cradling him as she cried out, “my baby, my baby,” over and over again. How? Why? What happened? It was the last time I’d see him. The last memory.

We could not hold a funeral because it was the peak of the pandemic but I spent the next months writing to senators, attempting to begin investigations into Rami’s death. I also walked the beach daily, finding solace in the ocean, picking up shells. Soon, Rami’s 41st birthday was approaching. I needed to do something as I’d never known a time where we hadn’t said “Happy Birthday” to each other. Death could not stop me. He might not have been here anymore but I knew he was watching. I also needed to bring my mom a form of peace as a part of her had died with him.

I decided I was going to make a yellow heart on the sand, composed of the clam shells I’d been collecting, surrounding it with enough candles that my brother could see it from heaven. The yellow heart symbol for those lost was started by David Gompertz and his family. His wife died of Covid in 2020 and he wanted to tie a yellow ribbon on his tree as a way to honor her. However, because of lockdown he was not able to go buy yellow ribbon so his family decided to put yellow hearts in their windows. Shortly after, they started the Yellow Hearts to Remember Facebook page and it went viral.

I liked their idea, and had found support through their page as well as the inspiration for the clam shell heart, but how to personalize it? At first, I thought of writing on the shells but my mom suggested placing a pebble inside the heart with his name. I liked the idea but in order to fill the heart we needed more than one pebble. I went on social media and announced I’d be lighting the heart on my brother’s birthday & I invited others to come add their loved ones names. That night about 25 people showed and approximately 120 names were placed. My partner Travis helped me light more than 200 candles. A mom and her daughter said a prayer and John Walsh sang “Danny Boy.” Unknown to him, it was my grandmother’s favorite song.

My mom cried. She cried in a good way, a way we cry at a funeral, a way we cry when grieving, a way we cry when we need to release our sadness, a way we cry when our love overwhelms us. Travis and I cried as well. We walked away that night thinking we’d be back the next day to clean it up. I went to bed peaceful that evening for the first time in a long time. I had given my mom a space to say goodbye. I gave her place to grieve. Little did I know the world was also waiting, just like us, for a place to grieve and gather with strangers who understood and let their tears release their grief too.

The next morning, images of the lit heart began to go viral. Little by little and day by day, the heart became 12 hearts bearing over 3500 names. How could we stop when we knew the need for this space?

That’s how it all began … and now what was once clamshells and rocks on a beach has become the first permanent national Covid-19 memorial known as Rami’s Heart. People tell me I’m a hero, but I’m not. I’m just a sister that loves her brother beyond measure and I won’t allow his death to take that away. No matter how horrible it was. the world will know of him.