Eid al-Fitr should be a time filled with joy and celebration. Children should run in new clothes, laugh, collect Eidiya (Eid Money that adults distribute) and visit relatives.
The houses should be filled with the aroma of Maamoula and Kaaka, traditional Eid cookies and streets should be alive with gatherings and celebrations.
But in Gaza this is a time of sadness. The air is thick dust from the ruins of destroyed buildings, and the sound of bombing does not give up.
Instead of joyful gatherings, families sit among the ruins, mourn their loved ones.
Many of us are starving, barely sticking to life, wondering if the next bomb will fall on us. The nights are Beshina, persecuted by memories and nightmares that do not fade.
This will be my first Eid without my little sister Rahaf. She was my only sister, my best friend. During the genocide, we attached ourselves to each other, finding comfort in each other.
We spent 13 eids together on this earth, and Rahaf was the joy of each of them. Ever since she could walk, she would wake up in front of everyone else, running through the house, announcing that she started.
She would wear her new clothes and ask me to make my hair before we visited our grandmothers in their homes, sitting with an extended family gathered there, drinking tea and eating sweets that the mothers spent days preparing.
There is nothing to prepare this year, there is no place to leave, there is no Rahaf to share it with.
I never thought I would lose her and I wasn’t ready for her absence. We dreamed of the future if we were always among others to celebrate turning point, creating lives filled with art and words.
I longed to see her becoming an artist he always dreamed of, watching her paintings come to life and testify that the world recognizes her talent.
We imagined the day when I would publish my first book. In order to celebrate together, knowing that no matter where life took us, we would always be the greatest supporters.
Rahaf took me away on December 28.
We slept at home when a home of my uncle was bombed at 4am. The explosion also destroyed our home.
Rahaf slept in a room closest to the house of my uncle and crushed.
It was the room where I slept. We transferred the places just four days before it was killed.
Since then, there is no time to mourn, there is no room for processing loss. Sadness is not facilitated in the middle of the bombs.
How can you heal when every moment threatens to take another loved one? How can you find the way forward when the future you imagined was stolen?
In the midst of my own sadness, I recalled that there are those who understand her murder even less than me.
While we adults wear unbearable anxiety, the children are left to move their own pain. And they have dreams interrupted by the loss, fear, the lack of those who once made their world feel safe. My seven -year -old cousin Qamar recently turned his attention to it.
One afternoon as I was sitting on the couch in the house of another uncle that took us when our house was destroyed, Qamar came and sat down beside me.
Her little hand reached out, gently touching my hand. I could say she thought.
“Shahd,” she started, her voice heavy with curiosity, “Why aren’t you at home? Why isn’t she there anymore?”
My heart skipped the rhythm because of the simplicity of her question, but I felt like we had the weight of a thousand memories that I could not explain to those innocent eyes.
“Our home – destroyed. There was nothing left after the bombing. We lost everything – walls, memories and Rahaf.”
She stared at me for a moment, wide eyes, “And Rahaf, where is she?”
I knew that Qamara was told that there was no Rahaf, so the question hit me like a cold gust of wind.
The weight of the loss of Rahaf felt impossible to re -invest words for someone as young, especially someone like Qamara, who knew Rahaf’s warm laughter and a gentle spirit.
I closed my eyes for a moment. My voice was barely whispered. “Rahaf is now in the sky. She was taken away from us during the bombing, and we can’t bring her back.”
Her face was filled with confusion and innocence. “Why did she have to go? Why did they take her?”
My hands were shaking as I pulled her close. “I don’t know, Qamar. I wish I could explain it to you in a way that makes sense.”
She whispered, “I want to see her again. I miss.”
Tears came across my eyes, my heart hurts. “I miss it too. Every day. But it will always be with us, in our hearts.”
At that moment, I could not wonder about the day when Qamar realized what the war was doing – not only to the ground but also to the people. How long before he realizes that even when we try to move on, the pain of loss remains like a shadow.
I don’t want her to understand these things. It’s too young for the weight of this sharp reality. You should not feel such pain and loss.
I wish I could take my kids tread and hide them in my heart to protect them from terror, fear and sadness.
The world expects to be strong, that we have Sumoud (persistence), but the emotional exhaustion of life through the war and loss leaves little space for anything else.
The weight of survival without luxury healing is a burden. There is no closure in the genocide that continues to develop.
There is no room for mourning when survival requires every ounce of power.
But we stick to the love of those we have lost, maintaining them living in our memories, our words and our struggle to exist.
Hope, as fragile as it is, the act of resistance.
We are maintained by the search for light in the ruins, for the meaning in the absence, for life outside of mere survival.
It reminds us that we are still here. And that’s important.
