June 30th. The day that the bodies of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers were found in the West Bank. The day that created anger and shock in many, and mostly fear. Fear for what was about to come next.
Palestinians had grown used to Israeli response and yet even as everyone waited, you could hear the silent hums of a people's breathing as they anticipated what would be another chapter in their story as an Occupied people. Despite that, there was no guessing the 51 day war that would come about as a result.
Here we are in another month of Ramadan and I can't help but reflect at how different last year's Ramadan was. Being in America, I was not sleeping under a roof I was worried I may at some point find on top of me, and yet I felt suffocated with every image I saw. I fasted all day but had no appetite for the food at iftar time as every morning and night was spent watching an Arabic news channel that broadcasted the destruction. We made du'a during taraweeh prayers and asked Allah to give them the strength to persevere and the patience to cope with the losses that none of us could even begin to imagine. But no matter what we did or how we felt, I was always reminded by the dinner table filled with food and the quiet of the night during late prayers that we were not suffering like that. I was living a privileged life that many were too hopeless to even dream of. I could look up at my ceiling while lying awake in bed and not wonder if at some point I may find it on top of me. All I could do was watch the news and pray for their pain to go away. And that would never be enough.
The only pain I suffered during their ordeal is the constant guilt that never seemed to abandon me. Here I was living a quiet life and taking it for granted, while another girl in Gaza who could be just like me in age and smarts and yet was watching her neighborhood turn into rubble. There seemed no logic or comfort in the fact that I was "saved" from life in war while my equal was living that way. Yes, Allah (SWT) has a reason for everything. He knows better that I ever will why so many children died during the war. He is the only one who knows why young men and women who are not different than I am are living a different fate than me. But sometimes it is hard to use that as a consolation. It is not always awesome to consider yourself simply "lucky". Sometimes you need a reason and a purpose to make that guilt go away.
So here we are a year later and I found myself thinking of the families in Gaza now who are having iftar with some or many members of their family missing. I think of the families who may have just made it through one year without their home. I think of how easy it is for us to get caught up in our "privileges" and forget others' losses. So I'm saying this to myself and to many other Palestinians who may have had the same thoughts that I did: it could have very easily been any of us living in that situation, so we should never forget those who are no different than us. We should not need constant shelling to be reminded to pray for all those in need of some du'a, kindness, and remembrance.
Palestinians had grown used to Israeli response and yet even as everyone waited, you could hear the silent hums of a people's breathing as they anticipated what would be another chapter in their story as an Occupied people. Despite that, there was no guessing the 51 day war that would come about as a result.
Here we are in another month of Ramadan and I can't help but reflect at how different last year's Ramadan was. Being in America, I was not sleeping under a roof I was worried I may at some point find on top of me, and yet I felt suffocated with every image I saw. I fasted all day but had no appetite for the food at iftar time as every morning and night was spent watching an Arabic news channel that broadcasted the destruction. We made du'a during taraweeh prayers and asked Allah to give them the strength to persevere and the patience to cope with the losses that none of us could even begin to imagine. But no matter what we did or how we felt, I was always reminded by the dinner table filled with food and the quiet of the night during late prayers that we were not suffering like that. I was living a privileged life that many were too hopeless to even dream of. I could look up at my ceiling while lying awake in bed and not wonder if at some point I may find it on top of me. All I could do was watch the news and pray for their pain to go away. And that would never be enough.
The only pain I suffered during their ordeal is the constant guilt that never seemed to abandon me. Here I was living a quiet life and taking it for granted, while another girl in Gaza who could be just like me in age and smarts and yet was watching her neighborhood turn into rubble. There seemed no logic or comfort in the fact that I was "saved" from life in war while my equal was living that way. Yes, Allah (SWT) has a reason for everything. He knows better that I ever will why so many children died during the war. He is the only one who knows why young men and women who are not different than I am are living a different fate than me. But sometimes it is hard to use that as a consolation. It is not always awesome to consider yourself simply "lucky". Sometimes you need a reason and a purpose to make that guilt go away.
So here we are a year later and I found myself thinking of the families in Gaza now who are having iftar with some or many members of their family missing. I think of the families who may have just made it through one year without their home. I think of how easy it is for us to get caught up in our "privileges" and forget others' losses. So I'm saying this to myself and to many other Palestinians who may have had the same thoughts that I did: it could have very easily been any of us living in that situation, so we should never forget those who are no different than us. We should not need constant shelling to be reminded to pray for all those in need of some du'a, kindness, and remembrance.
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