I write, willingly letting my entrenched heart speak. Focussing on a fuss, how can I accomplish any kind of conclusion? Putting the pieces together, the conclusion remains the same. You are no longer here. Over the phone, my father is trying to explain to me that his father's faith was intertwined with this sad country, that he is just like all our martyrs, that this is God's will, that I have to accept it and pray for him. But NO, he is not just like any of our martyrs, NO, he WAS Palestine. He IS Palestine! How can he be gone? And NO, this is not faith, this is the Israeli murdering machine. He is not longer among us, because when they got him to Shifa hospital, the doctors were trying to rescue tens of other injured victims, with a lack of everything! With no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medications, no equipment, and bombs still falling over their heads, how could he have ever had a fair chance? A fair chance to live!
I screamed at my dad on the phone, and begged him to postpone his death just a bit more. Just enough time for me to reach Gaza. But, grandpa, you died. You died while I was trying to reach you. You died while I was being stuck at the other side of the border. You died while an Egyptian officer was telling me that I cannot access the Gaza Strip until a truce has been brokered. You died while Israel was bombing the hell out of this enclosed enclave. You died while I was throwing rocks at a huge fence twice my size screaming my lungs out in the hope that you would hear me. You died while I was begging God and the universe to take me instead of you. You died, because the Angel of death, Israel, decided that you are a threat to their national security. You died because your beauty is a proof of all the strong wishes to be.
So here I am, sitting in the dirt, at the other side of the border, waiting for a miracle to happen. I still feel that when the Israeli F16s will withdraw and the Egyptian doorman will open the gates, I will run home and find you there. You will be waiting for me at the doorstep, in your beautiful deshdasheh, like every single time I come back home, just like a fresh morning breeze that pacifies my entire being. You will hug me, kiss me on my forehead and carry my suitcase. Once inside, you will tell me the magic words that make me rush to you as often as I can: "Allah yerda 3aleki ya sedy" (May God bless You my dear). How can you not be a transcending melody? How can you not be a little piece of Heaven? Everything that was wrong, you made it right. You were the reason why I loved this doomed piece of land. You made Palestine beautiful despite the sorrows. You were the reason why I mastered my Yaffawi accent. The palm of your hand holding mine while I was a child shaped your legacy in my hand. You taught me step by step how to recognize the trees, the birds, the leaves and the waves of this country. You shaped history. You recreated Yaffa in my eyes. The Yaffa I have never seen. The Yaffa that you have been waiting 64 years to return to, and today they will burry you in front of your refugee camp in Gaza. How can this be right??!
I am hysterically suffocating! How can I ever fill this gaping hole, where a deep well of sadness is laying? Bitterness is stuck on my lips. How can there be life after you!? How? When I can't even attend your funeral? How? When Israel shows our ashes as a trophy, a mere momentum of its prize over us!
But don't I have your legacy engraved in my palm? Am I not the identity of all those who look at your murderers in the eye and spit on them! I am Reality and everything Israel refuses to see! I am you and you are me!
I am your granddaughter and everything you taught me to be.
Rest in peace grandpa, and maybe, just maybe, when I finally make it home, I will find you there.
My grandfather passed away on Sunday 11 March 2012, after a 4 days of attack of the Israeli forces, leaving 25 dead and 100 injured in the Gaza Strip.
