Eman Abu Shawish Story 14

Stolen birthday moments:

We spent most of the day trying to prepare some food for the family. This took a very long time because we used firewood that takes time to light and can only accommodate one pot at a time.

Red eyes and continuous shedding of tears are not important, nor are the fire burns on our hands. What really matters is that I don’t see them hungry, or have a guilt scar in my heart if any of them, God-forbid, were to become martyrs while craving food…

After we were done cooking, we changed our clothes. We gathered around to read some verse from the Qur’an before it turned dark. Darkness has been arriving much earlier than usual these days.

The kids sat on the floor of the room we have been sleeping in since the beginning of the war. I arranged the pieces of the marshmallow in a plastic plate and placed an electronic candle in the middle. In another plate, I put what we could scavenge of biscuits, and I walked towards them holding the two plates whilst singing: happy birthday to you…

Fayruz was the first to clap! Then her siblings followed as they sang with me. If the cells in her body could speak, they would have told us they were dancing in joy. And if I could, I would have thanked the darkness for hiding the avalanche of tears on my face that I could not control… I cried because of my daughter’s purity and innocence; that daughter who was elated with less than peanuts… or maybe I cried because I tricked time and stole for my kids and I 18 minutes of joy, of genuine smiles, of warm wishes, before an airstrike targeted a nearby location that shook the ground, the building, and our hearts… and my kids all returned to my lap and shoulders and sides, where they belong… and we start over the rituals of fear and fake sleep.

This, dear friends, is childhood in Gaza. A dream blockaded by scoundrels from every corner; scoundrels who wage sudden wars that won’t let a simple child’s dream ever be fulfilled. And so we replace it by a reality that we can force, until life or death finds its way to us.

Eman Abu Shawish – Mental Health Practitioner at UPA, Gaza, Palestine
6 November 2023

To read all stories in the series: http://upaconnect.org/category/gaza2023