Though frustrated with the sentence given recently to the young man who forever changed his life, Rajaie “Roger” El Shorafa is determined to move forward and start a new business.
“I like to work,” El Shofara said. “I don’t want to be useless. I want to be something.”
It’s been a little more than nine months since 56-year-old El Shorafa stepped outside his Horton Variety convenience store and asked a group of people standing outside his door to move along.
Although he doesn’t remember what happened afterwards, an agreed statement of facts heard in court for the first time last week said El Shorafa was punched three times in the face before falling to the ground and hitting his head on the sidewalk.
He was rushed to hospital where he underwent life-saving brain surgery.
El Shorafa has since made a miraculous recovery. Three months at Victoria Hospital followed by two months in Parkwood Hospital, and El Shorafa is now able to do things his family thought might never be possible again.
He can talk. He can walk. He can remember his wife, and their three young children.
And now, he wants to start contributing to society again.
“I want to work,” he said.
Sitting together on the couch of their west London home, he and his wife, Manal Baliha, discussed what a future business might look like.
“We need to start something together,” said Baliha.
“It’s important for me to be with him, to care about him,” she added. “When it’s a family business, it’ll be easier.”
For the nearly 20 years he ran Horton Variety, Baliha said her husband regularly worked 16-18 hour days. She wants him to be able to spend more time with their twin seven-year-old sons, and their three-year-old daughter.
El Shorafa is also nervous about working alone, and hopes to start a business that can employ a small handful of people.
“Some people have to be with me,” he explained. “Working alone, I’ll have the same problem. I don’t want bad people coming to me.”
El Shorafa mentioned going back to college, but he isn’t quite sure what he wants to learn yet. He has some time to figure it out too; he wants to get his licence back first.
In the meantime, El Shorafa spends his days attending physiotherapy appointments twice a week and going to Cornerstone Clubhouse, a day program for people living with acquired brain injuries.
“He’s getting some new skills now,” said Baliha, laughing about her husband’s new interest in gardening.
“It’s good for him.”
But along with that new interest in gardening is a new struggle controlling his emotions, said Baliha. A social worker has been helping him deal with his mood swings, she added.
“People behaving bad, they make me angry,” explained El Shorafa.
That’s why he didn’t go to the courthouse last week, when 23-year-old Jessie McConnell pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault and was given a sentence of 3.5 years behind bars. He didn’t want to become angry.
“It’s not fair,” he explained.
Baliha feels the same way; she thinks a 10-year prison sentence would have been more appropriate.
“My husband lost his job, his health, everything,” Baliha said. “For myself, it’s a joke.”
But rather than focus on what’s in the past, Baliha and El Shorafa are trying to stay focused on the present.
They’ve sold the building where the convenience store was once located, and they’re saving the money for a new business venture.
“I have to be useful,” said El Shorafa.
“I want to be, all my life, useful.”
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