How Has All This Time Passed in War?!

I was surprised two days ago that my close friend commemorated the first anniversary of her son’s painful departure, while the wheels of war continue to turn relentlessly in Gaza, and where my friend’s family, like thousands of families, have been exhausted by the war and its repercussions.

As the days went on and turned into months, the pain and suffering grew more intense; my friend received the news of her eldest son’s death while she was displaced in the center of the Gaza Strip, while her son died in the north of the strip. The division of the area and the restriction on the displaced from reaching beyond Wadi Gaza to the north prevented her from being able to catch a last glimpse of her beloved son, who was buried by a few friends and companions. Once the ceasefire was signed in early January, she hurried to visit his grave and cry over it, as if he had just left that day.

I cannot believe that my friend commemorated the anniversary of her son’s departure while she is in Gaza City suffering from the continuous shelling around her, and the sounds of explosions echoing in her ears, disturbing her nights as her days become increasingly constricted, doing nothing but counting the time that has become a cycle of blood and fire. Meanwhile, the means of living have deteriorated further and further, making it difficult to obtain a loaf of bread. Using primitive methods to wash clothes and cook food presents other problems and difficult aspects of the suffering that weighs heavily on my friend's heart as she counts the days and completes a full year since her son’s departure, sharing this on her social media walls, yet nothing in her situation has changed except for the worse. Especially as the war has dragged on to the extent that grieving fathers and mothers are now commemorating the first anniversary of their children’s departure with the scent of death surrounding them, with the wheels of war and its sickle still turning, so much so that one might imagine and expect that if you commemorate the memory of a loved one today, you might be the next victim after an hour or the next day.

How has all this time passed without my friend being able to obtain bread without toil, as she used to do before? She would stop by the bakery close to her school when she returned home in the afternoon to buy fresh, delicious, hot bread. And as soon as she arrived home, she would turn on the washing machine and put the food on the stove that runs on domestic gas, cooking in less than an hour, while all the children would gather with their parents to have lunch before each would retire for a short nap. Thus life went on without real exhaustion. However, today my friend, burdened with sadness and pain and the agony of loss, like thousands of mothers in Gaza, is squeezing all her feelings and binding them deep in her heart so that she can continue to endure for the remaining children; she lights the wood fire in a side stove and washes the clothes with her bare hands, using little water and locally made washing powder that does nothing but ruin the fabric, and leaves her fingers with painful and strange skin conditions.

How has all this time passed without us breathing a sigh of relief, without waking from the nightmare, without sitting in the backyard to cry? How has all this time passed while we are not afraid that we might lose another son or that we ourselves may be the next breaking news? Perhaps we will be pulled from under the rubble of a cracked house, or perhaps the ground will swallow our tattered tent, and in the end, we do not dare to commemorate the memory of our loved one, we could almost envy him if he escapes all this misery, homelessness, fear, and slow death.

How has the world remained silent amidst the harsh days that people are living in Gaza? How has the world seen rivers of tears in mothers’ eyes and heard the cries of beautiful thin girls, yet turned a deaf ear to the whimpers of children who have lost their mothers, had their limbs amputated, or have been severely affected by this insane war?

How many faces of death exist in Gaza, and how horrific are the effects that the machines of death leave on the souls and bodies of the people there.
How does time pass, and you know nothing but that you are weak beyond description, so you cannot cry more, nor can you be silent for long, nor can you remember? How hard it is for time to pass while you are not even able to remember a departed loved one, because fear rampages in your heart and soul, and you know for certain that every moment of time that passes is a moment of blood.