The bad news continues…
Three days ago, I received the news that shattered my heart like a missile… my family’s house is gone.
Today, I heard the outrageous news, our house was bombed.
My brother’s house was bombed by a drone-launched missile, which also struck my other brother’s house.
His pharmacy is in ruins.
My daughter’s house in Gaza was burned.
My niece’s house was destroyed.
Let me take you back to our family’s house, our real home, my father’s house, where four of my brothers lived.
Our home, it was my father’s long and cherished tale, one of his proudest achievements, which he would recount to us every time we gathered around him. Now, my father has no story left to tell and no achievement to boast about.
Our home, my mother’s joy when her long-held wish came true in 1983, and she finally had a house with a tiled floor. We tiled half of our house… My mother “Sirriyeh” was happy and shared her joy with us: “My wish was to have a tiled floor in our home so a child could crawl without his clothes getting dirty”. But now, there is no house, no tiled floor left, Mother!
Mother… they demolished our home, my brother’s home and ours… Mother… Mother… Mother.
Our home, the joy my father felt when he received two rooms from UNRWA in 1960.
Our home, when it expanded westward, and my father built a new room we called “Father and Mother’s room”. It was larger than the two previous rooms.
Our home, when my father expanded westward and established a concrete block factory in the early 1960s. These blocks were watered by “Sirriyeh”, who would carry water from the camp’s faucet, balancing one jug on her head and another on her hip.
Our home, when the work at the block factory ended, and we built the western room. This room had many names: Uncle Mohammad’s room, the guest room, Riyad’s room. It was unique not only for its many names but also for what it held… a set of rattan chairs for guests, a table and chair for Riyad’s studies, a chair with a sack of sugar on it, and a landline phone dating back to the early 1970s, placed atop the sack of sugar, serving all the camp residents.
Our home, when we celebrated in the early 1970s by transforming the palm frond canopy into a zinc roof.
Our home, when we renovated the middle room, where my uncle Mohammad Abu Saeb got married, and where Saeb and Manal were born.
Our home, when we renovated again in 1983, replacing the tile roof with asbestos sheets, and converting the cement floor to tile, bringing joy to my mother “Sirriyeh”.
Our home, when the eastern side was rebuilt in concrete, and my brothers Abdallah, Ahmed, and Mahmoud moved into the upper apartment.
Our home, when we tore down the western side in 1996 and rebuilt it with concrete, creating a beautiful, spacious hall. How many joyful gatherings it held, how many weddings were celebrated there, and how many mourners it received in times of sorrow…
How many Eids this hall witnessed, welcoming well-wishers as we poured coffee and shared dates. We would spread out plastic sheets to divide and distribute the meat from our sacrifice, while my father, notebook and pen in hand, called out to one, yelling at another, and playfully argued with a third, filled with joy and satisfaction.
Our home, when Amjad saved every coin to build half an apartment that still stands unfinished… we hoped to celebrate one of the family’s young men there.
Our home, oh our home… our home is gone… vanished into nothingness!!!
Notice, from 1960 until 1996… 36 years of building, rebuilding, and building again until our home took its final shape. And in a single moment, a shell or missile erased the labor of 36 years, the hard work of an entire family, a family of over 50 people!
Our home, gone with it are the memories of “Hajjeh Mariam” – the old lady – and her eastern room, where she would light a fire with almond shells early in the morning to make tea. We would gather around the fire, sharing breakfast together, dipping bread into our tea.
Hajjeh Mariam’s room, where the flour storage was kept, and a basket of bread hung high to keep it out of reach of the little ones… She would tuck away all sorts of delicious treats between the mattresses.
Our home… what can I say about our home… how can I not weep for it? We lived there, grew up there, married there, and raised our children there. Each of my brothers, his wife, and their children had their own room. Our whole lives, our struggles, our memories, and everything we held dear were in that home. How can we not mourn it? Words are powerless to ease the weight of this pain.
Our home… I lived in the western room, the largest room in the house. My son Mahmoud, who was my youngest at the time, called this room “our home”. Every night, he insisted on bringing everything we owned into it, from his toys and toy cars to his wire cart and even the plastic chairs. This room, which he called “our home”, was where I stayed with my wife, Umm Ghassan, with our late son Ghassan, our daughter Bissan, and our son Mahmoud.
I returned from Libya in 1991 and stayed in our family home, in that room, until May 1995. After my parents returned from Hajj, I prepared a lunch for them that gathered all our extended family, in-laws, and friends. Then, I packed my belongings into my blue Fiat and moved to my new home in Al-Qarara, which had been ready and furnished for over a month.
Our home… my father’s house, my siblings’ house, the house of pride, togetherness, and love. Where will we meet from now on? Will we ever gather again for the holidays? Will we come together in Ramadan for a shared Iftar, inviting loved ones and family? Will we meet on Eid al-Adha to distribute the meat of our sacrifice?
Our home… my father’s home, with his regal bed… where else would my father have a bed like this? The wood for this bed was brought by my uncle, Abu Saeb, from Israel around 1973.
Our home, my mother Sirriyeh’s home, where she sheltered the neighborhood youths fleeing from army patrols during the First Intifada. She became known as “Sirriyeh”, mother of the prisoners, speaking in their name at rallies, and her name changed from “Umm Riyad” to “Umm Mahmoud”.
Our home, my father’s home, Hassan’s home… where will Hassan welcome his sisters now? Hassan’s apartment was always the place where his sisters gathered, filling it with joy for everyone. The apartment is gone now, Hassan. How will we manage without Hassan? Oh, Hassan, the loss of our home broke my heart three days ago, but you have wounded both my heart and my mind.
Our home is gone… the memories are gone… everything beautiful is gone…
I cannot go on; this is enough… my eyes can no longer hold back the falling tears, and my heart trembles, unable to continue.
We pray to God that our sorrows do not grow and that we are not devastated by more loss of our loved ones. Amen. The journey is still long… and the news will not stop.
Riyad Awwad
March 1, 2024
