Gaza, Then and Now

Between the memories we cherish and the reality we endure.

 Life can be unbearably difficult at times, but I think resisting the pain is worth the effort.

After all, every feeling, even grief, longing, and heartbreak is better than feeling nothing at all. Pain reminds us that we have loved, hoped, dreamed, and cared deeply. It reminds us that despite everything, we are still alive.

I found myself thinking about this recently after meeting a dear friend.

I met my friend yesterday.

She was holding her little boy in her arms, a child who has grown so much since the last time I saw him. He is almost one year old now, yet he has never seen his father, not even once. What makes it even more heartbreaking is that his father does not even know he exists. He disappeared before my friend had the chance to tell him that she was pregnant.

Every time I see her, I feel as though she has withered a little more. She laughs, talks, and tries to appear normal, but sorrow leaves its mark on a person no matter how hard they try to hide it. She often tells me that her son has become her entire world, that she lives for him now. Yet whenever she looks at him, she sees traces of his absent father… his eyes, his features, the way he smiles.

As for his father, he remains trapped somewhere in the unknown. She does not know whether he is alive or dead. She does not know where he is. All she knows is that every night she prays for him and asks God to reunite them someday.

A few months ago, news spread that a group of released detainees had arrived in Nasser Hospital. She rushed there with his family, driven by that stubborn hope that refuses to die no matter how many times reality crushes it. They did not find him. But one of the released prisoners told them that he had heard his name being called inside the prison.

Just a name.

Just a tiny thread to hold onto.

Yet somehow, it was enough to give them another reason to wait. Another reason to hope.

Since then, she has lived clinging to that fragile thread, waiting without knowing whether he will return soon or never return at all. She does not know whether she will find him standing before her as he once was, or whether the torture they hear about every day has taken something from him that can never be restored, perhaps his memory, perhaps his health, perhaps even the person he used to be.

The pain reaches in every direction. There is a young woman spending the best years of her life waiting. And there is a little boy who has never seen his father. His father never held him in his arms, never heard his first cries, never smelled his newborn scent.

As she spoke, I simply listened. The more she talked, the more helpless I felt. I did not know what to say. I did not know what words could possibly comfort a loss like this.

Can a person truly be comforted after all of that?

Sometimes I wished I could simply hold her tightly enough to take some of the sorrow from her heart and carry it myself. But the truth is that I had nothing to offer except my presence. I could not bring her husband back. I could not repair her life. I could not even help her in the ways I wished I could. All I could do was sit beside her while she carried this unbearable weight alone.

Sometimes I wish I could turn back time.

I wish I could return to the Gaza we once knew… alive, vibrant, and ordinary in the most beautiful ways. I wish I could go back to those small moments we never imagined we would one day miss so desperately.

Back to when we were eighteen.

Back to the Physiotherapy Department, where I first met you, and how small our worries seem now compared to what came later.

Back then, our greatest concern was passing a practical exam with a high grade, when that exam genuinely felt like the hardest thing life could possibly throw at us.

I wish I could return to those afternoons when we celebrated the end of an exam with a cup of coffee. The coffee was never particularly good, but it was warm, and on a cold winter day, that was enough.

Sometimes I wonder if I could borrow just a little time from my eighteen-year-old self.

Back when one of my biggest ambitions was earning the approval of our lecturer, Dr. Abeer, and avoiding that sharp look she gave whenever someone misidentified a muscle during anatomy class. Her gaze intimidated me so much that I would spend hours studying, terrified of making a mistake. Even now, years after graduation and long after she became one of the kindest people I know, I still remember how nervous she made me feel.

I miss the smallest things.

The bus rides with the rest of our classmates on our way to the Children’s Hospital. The laughter, the conversations, the familiar faces we saw every day without realizing how precious they were until we lost some of them. I miss the walks by the sea after our classes ended, when the future felt wide open and life seemed predictable enough to make plans for.

Looking back now, I realize how little I knew. How fortunate I was. How much I had without ever recognizing it.

As I write this, all I find myself wishing for is something impossible.

That one day, we might close our eyes on this difficult world and open them to a different one.

Perhaps that wish is as impossible as returning to eighteen, but some hopes, no matter how fragile, are worth holding on to.

Happiness was that simple.

Life was that simple too.

We did not have much, yet we possessed things that were worth far more than we understood at the time: routine, safety, the ability to make plans for next week without fear, and the freedom to dream without constantly negotiating with reality.

I had so much. And somehow, I believed I had nothing.

Perhaps that is why nostalgia hurts so much. Not because the past was perfect, but because we did not know we were living days that would one day become precious memories.

Yesterday, as I sat with my friend and listened to her speak about her missing husband, about the child who has never seen his father, about the endless waiting and uncertainty, I felt as though time had split into two separate lives: the life we had before, and the life that came after.

Sometimes I find myself wishing, just for a moment, that I could close my eyes and return there, to the version of ourselves that believed a difficult exam was the hardest thing life could possibly bring.

But time does not move backward.

Life does not offer us the chance to relive the same days.

All it leaves us with are memories.

That is why we hold onto them so tightly and perhaps that is why I write, to keep those days from disappearing completely, to preserve the people we once were, and to remind myself, amid so much loss, that life was once so beautiful.

And to hold onto the hope that, someday, it can be beautiful again.