One incident can sometimes make you lose hope in life, while another can help you find it. A clothesline, a letter, a smashed finger — fragments through which a whole life takes shape in a reality where the norm has been suspended.
In the heart of Gaza, where the sky trembled with the sound of explosions and the ground shook under weary feet, I sat under a dim moonlight. My head rested in one hand, while the other held a book– a fleeting escape from the world and grim reality around me. When was the last time you felt grateful in your life? A question in the book stopped me. What is there to be grateful for in the midst of war? Perhaps only this: that I was still alive, and that God has chosen for me to survive until this moment. Albeit the scent of death lingered near, only four meters away where the neighbor's house stood. All its inhabitants were martyred, leaving only a few clothes swaying on the line.
That clothesline, by the sound of which I was always annoyed. I would grumble whenever I saw my neighbor hanging laundry in front of my bedroom window. Where is she now? I wish she could come back from beneath the earth! How terrifying it is, for someone I used to see and hear every day to simply die. Death could have chosen me instead, but it left me with life for a reason I still do not understand.
I let out a sigh and closed the book in despair. I began to recall my old memories, trying to remember the taste of happiness. What did it taste like? I now wonder.
While lost in thought, I felt a paper fall from inside the book. I raised my eyebrows in surprise, picked up the paper, and read its contents. It was a letter I had written to myself a year ago. I adjusted my posture to focus more on the reading; it seemed to contain important questions.
"Dear Reem, Today, as I promised myself, I should have achieved my dreams. So, did I keep my promise or break it?"
Reading the list of goals I was supposed to accomplish this year, I lamented my situation and what I had become. I had let myself down and achieved nothing... How could I have done so in chaos, distraction, and destruction caused by this cursed war? I spent my year wandering — from one house to another, fearing the sounds of rockets and bombs, grieving for my lost future.
I took a breath and let out a deep sigh to relieve some of the burden off my chest. I stood up and glanced stealthily into the window, my eyes falling on the neighbor's house now inhabited by ghosts, feeling as if they were watching every time I entered my room as if plotting something against me.
I held up my mirror to see a lost identity — who am I? I am not the Reem I used to be. My face is pale, covered in gloom. Dark circles are drawn under my eyes, my lips are cracked, my hair is falling out copiously, and gray hair is starting to invade it even though I am only in my twenties!
Suddenly, time stopped. What felt like an earthquake violently shook the house, stormy smoke covered the surroundings, the suffocating smell of gunpowder spread quickly, and the terrified cries of people rose. I did not grasp what had happened until I found myself running out of the house with my family, escaping death. My father shouted: "Run quickly before another rocket explodes!"
We had no place to go that night except for my grandmother’s house, already crowded with refugees like us! There was no other option. We spent several days at my grandmother's house, during which I did not know how to rest. We lived as if in the stone age, preparing food on firewood and washing our clothes by hand with little water we bought with difficulty. We spent all day listening to the news on my grandmother's radio, which had been around for over twenty years.
On my last day there, I heard the crying of a small child. I went to see and found that my brother had been beaten by some of the mischievous children in the neighborhood. I took his hands and led him out of the room, standing at the door to warn the bullies not to repeat their actions. Rather than listen to me, one of the kids came and slammed the door in my face. Suddenly, I felt excruciating pain in my finger. I looked at it and found that the door had closed on it tightly. I screamed with all my might, "My finger is bleeding! Open the door quickly!"
When the door opened, I saw that half of my finger was cut off! My blood pressure rose and I fainted from the severity of the shock. I regained consciousness while on a hospital bed, the doctor stitching my middle finger without anesthesia. What on earth is happening to me?! I felt my soul being torn apart from the pain. I cried and screamed like I had never before.
“Where is my nail?” I muttered amidst my tears and pain after I realized that my nail had been torn off from its roots. “Don’t worry, the doctor will treat it,” my mother reassured me in a broken voice, a look of sadness covering her face.
We returned home after that incident, and I hated that cursed child and his family who defended him, causing me damage, the effects of which I still see to this day. Since then, I lost hope in life, and I no longer had the desire or passion to live.
A few days later, a stranger knocked on our door. My father went to greet him, only to see the last person he expected to be alive. It was our neighbor! I gasped and went to tell my mother. My mother was shocked when she saw our neighbor walking over towards us. She told us she was the sole survivor among her family members.
She began to describe what happened to her during the shelling of her house by the Israeli Occupation Forces: "I found myself flying in the sky from the force of the rocket explosion, but God chose for me to fall on a nearby building instead of falling to the ground and dying. My skull and neck were damaged, but I am still alive. As for my children and husband, God took them, and I am left with no one."
She spoke calmly, with a slight smile on her face. What a patient woman! Despite the severe trials and oppression she faced, she still smiled and praised God! I felt how trivial my own suffering was compared to her calamities. Although my finger was damaged, it would eventually heal, but her loss was immense and irreplaceable. She became both a widow and bereaved mother in one stroke.
My neighbor did not come to our house just to tell her painful story. She made us appreciate the blessings we had and realize that our situation is much better than others, even though we all suffer from the same conditions of war. At least all my family members are safe, and that is enough.
