It’s the first day of February 2024. Midnight. I sit on my mattress, beside my mother exhausted from the heavy days and the cold embrace of her floor-bound bedding. Above us, the drone continues its relentless buzzing, piercing through our restless sleep.
I look at the window. Lightning flashes, followed by thunder, a natural phenomenon in the most unnatural of circumstances.
Four walls, a ceiling, a mattress, a blanket, a door, and a window with shattered glass, patched with clear plastic. Yet the cold creeps in, burrowing into our bones. I realize that I am still alive, for I can still feel the chill.
My tent-dwelling neighbor, however, has no such luxury. The rain does not ask for permission before it intrudes, teaching her another definition of cold amidst war.
I pray to God, pleading for His mercy, aware of the privilege of having a friend who opened her home to my family on the first day of our displacement.
Who am I to feel this fleeting sense of security?
I am not terrified of hunger. I sleep on a pillow, beneath a blanket. Friends rally around me when I’m angry. Their presence sometimes triggers hysterical laughter at the absurdity of such an “ideal” displacement. Thanks to God.
Yet time weighs heavily, dragging its feet. I stumble forward, like an elderly woman tripping every time she tries to rise.
Time sips away at my fear slowly. Each minute strips me further from my present and take me back to the day before October 7?
Who was I at that time?!
This body walking through the ruins does not feel like mine.
The voice I use to speak to those around me doesn’t sound like mine. Everything I witnessed and I continue to see…every scene and image burned into my mind. All does not feel familiar to me. I barely recognize myself. I am just a body crossing over massacres.
Not knowing myself, I laugh falsely. I stare at the roads, the wrinkled faces, the eyes of the displaced, also falsely. I cry. The tragedies of others console me as I count my own wounds on my trembling fingers.
Oh Lord, to whom I prayed before and after the war. I speak to You again: “Remind me, who am I! Who am I God? Why am I here, in this place, in this moment? How did this all happen? And why?
Oh Lord, whom I’ve addressed endlessly. I no longer understand the value of questions when all the answers are not clear. I’ve exhausted every inquiry.
On the third day of February 2024, I lost my home. On the first day of the month I have been left without it.
My dear house that was in the west of Al-Karama, on Al-Khazindar Street close to the land of the old warriors: “I write to you with the illusion of a safe passage. I address you from behind the death that is chasing us. I talk to you from behind the rubble surrounding us.
I know you don’t expect a letter from me. After all, I am the ungrateful daughter that abandoned you in difficult times. I didn’t fold you up and carried you in my bag. I turned my back to you and left.
But the truth is that I was terrified.
I know my apologies won’t bring back your walls. I don’t blame you for collapsing.
This is just a message of condolence to every detail of you buried under the rubble; for every detail remaining in our memory as we still continue to breathe.
Peace to the palm tree standing at your entrance. Is it still there?
Peace to the henna tree that bloomed on our street. Its blossoms resembled a birthday celebration for those passing by. They crushed its flowers between their hands. Its fragrance imbued with my mother’s spirit.
Peace to the bougainvillea sprawling over your walls and to the children in the neighborhood who tried eagerly to reach its red berries.
Peace to the sunbirds that nested there.
Peace to the olive tree we greeted each morning through the window in my parents’ bedroom.
Peace to Maryam, our shadow tree, where my niece, Mayar used to sit with her cup of water stroking your leaves as she described her day.
Peace to the mint plants by my bedroom window which I took care of for six years. Its green leaves defying the seasons. It looked flourishing even in winter. How everyone marveled at that!
I left you alone to wither without allowing your roots to mingle with mine; without your leaves tasting my blood one last time. If only I had known, I would have carried you with me, however, I was stupid to believe that a house could endure all that!
May peace fall upon everything that was you.
To everything I left behind…my parents’ wedding pictures, those of my siblings, to my father’s library, my books, my pillow, my blanket, my clothes, my dresses hanging neatly in the closet, and to the Christmas tree with its ornaments, to you all I say: “May peace fall upon you.”
Dear home,
It so painful that you “died” alone; that you left us to our own solitude. It breaks our hearts to know that after the Israeli occupation troops left the area you collapsed.
How many nights did you cry alone?
How many nights did the echo of our voices inside like hymns?
What did you do before you felt to the ground?
Couldn’t our stories together save you?! Our laughter, our tears, our arguments, our celebrations? Couldn’t my grandmother’s shawl that was on my bed hold you together? Couldn’t my mother’s prayers help you? Couldn’t the teacups and the Eid pastries fortify you?
All our memories together that we left you behind disappointed you!
Our first steps on your floor
Our goodbyes silenced by our departures!
Back then, the nightingales used to sing me lullabies. You kept casting their shadow on your walls every time the way seemed unbearably long.
I do not want them to return anything to me. I just want to know who am I that is trapped under this rubble trying with all my effort to inhale some air!
I want my house back to me same as it used to be. Not better. Not different. I do not seek solace in empty words meant to diminish the enormity of my loss. Let no one pat my shoulder to stifle my grief. No one has the right to organize the chaos of my curses.
Dear house,
In your ruins I see the red ribbon of my dress; the red dress I loved. If only we were one, so I could unearth myself from beneath this debris and recognize who am I again.
Yours always,
The least faithful to you,
Bisan Abdul-Rahim
February 3, 2024
