Iman Badah Story 21

Good morning… from the Shatie’ Camp (Camp of the Beach)/Gaza

I cannot believe I am seeing the light of day! I feel for my arm! My face!
I open my eyes and close them, then I open them again to ensure that what I am seeing is real.
Yes, this is my home that I love and belong to.
This is my window, and these are my family and here is my husband beside me.

We are alive and our house has not been destroyed over our heads yet… that same nightmare that hit our next door neighbors and they woke up to it in Heaven. We survived the terror that overwhelmed many community members in our area after being hysterically and chaotically targeted by the air strikes of the occupying force in the past forty eight hours! I wonder how any human being can be this monstrous and blood thirsty…

Throughout, I felt as if the house was falling into an abyss that was swallowing the house with us in it; that the walls were collapsing; and that I was trying to float over the rubble… but we get swallowed by the abyss before I could float!

Mohammad!
Mohammad, my beloved, my husband, whom I am terrified to sleep and loose… that I wake up one day without my support, without my love, without my husband.
Horror engulfs me if I am but a few centimeters away from him.
I am scared to be embroiled in a life potentially devoid of him.

The war prolongs and complicates my relationship with him. I connect to him more, and attach to him more, like a four-year-old kid. I want to hide in his pocket or disappear into him. I rush into his arms as the sound gets louder, and he hides me between his arms. He shuts my ears with his hands so I don’t hear scary sounds. He does not sleep until I sleep. He stays up. He smokes a lot. He gets insomnia. And after a few days, he crashes but wakes up to the sound of every explosion to check on me and everyone else. Then he closes his eyes, and I close my eyes that are filled with tears. Tears that won’t dry up. Tears that express nothing except bitter pain and helplessness.

I pray to God. God protect my home, husband, family, and all people. I place my hand on my weak, exhausted heart and recite verse and prayers for internal peace. My heart calms down for moments, but this serenity is internationally banned.

Flying here has different connotations from those expected in the rest of the world. Naval ships start bombing left and right; I hear the sounds of rockets flying over my head! Here, rockets don’t simply fall; they fly. Missiles fly, shrapnels fly, carnage flies, and the souls of children and young women fly to the sky before their dreams get to mature.

I wonder how their souls fly? What do they feel? Do they feel pain?!

People here comfort each other and say: “Don’t be scared. You will not hear the sound of the rocket that kills you because the rocket is faster than the sound it makes.”

In reality, this scares me more…

What does a martyr see in that first moment upon reaching the sky? Who talks to him? What do they tell him? How does he bid farewell to his family?
What does he do when he misses his family?
Here on earth we cry over his loss, does he cry over us?

Separation by death is bitter, and resuming life after that loss is even more bitter.

Iman Badah
Mental Health Specialist, UPA – Gaza, Palestine
November 20, 2023

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