Enlarge photo
In a moment I believed that all my attempts to compensate my children the scary and unsecured life they have to live in Gaza succeeded, buying them the toys they liked, taking them to places that not many children in the camp can visit, letting them use the computer, were some of the things that I used in an attempt to let them forget even for awhile that they are living in GAZA.
However, it seems that I was fooling myself, and there always was something hidden inside my children that even me as their mother can not see. Until one day I realized the fact that nothing can heal or compensate the feeling of insecurity.
It was almost mid night, my husband was not home yet, and suddenly a big explosion heard away, though it was not close to the place where we are living but still the loud voice heard can make you shake, suddenly my son Mustafa wake up and he was calling my name in a hysterical way, I went to check on him, telling him to back to his sleep, and gives him the assurances that the voice he heard is far away, but Mustafa stopped me with his striking question “do you think that my father will be safe” “please call him and ask him to come back” in a trembled voice Mustafa begged me.
Off course I tried to comfort my son telling him that dad will back soon, and he will be safe, but inside me I knew that I can not give this little child the guarantees he wanted. A fact that I can’t deny especially that I myself can not have this kind of guarantees.
In another occasion my younger son Ahmed six years old wake up one morning insisting to tell me a dream that he had, he even does not want to wash his face or wear his uniform until he narrates his dream, upon his demands I listened to him while he was telling his own dream “every thing was burning, people were running and screaming, all the houses were on fire except ours, and the people came to stay with us, they bring their apples and bananas so they can eat”. Mustafa asked Ahmed why the houses were on fire, and Ahmed said “from the Israeli shelling stupid you”
My son’s state of mind at this point, and Ahmed’s dream forced me to face a fact that I was trying to overleap. The fact that nothing can change the way these children keep their fears, and their uncomfortable feelings, nothing can change the experiences, and the reactions taken by these children to cope with such traumatic experiences. And that it is not a matter of what they could have or what they could not have as I convinced my self.
My son’s feelings of concerns and worry about his father and mainly not about himself was an alarming fact for me that until this moment I can not adjust with, the insecurity feelings, and the threats of losing a dear one that might be the father as a source of security, or the mother as a source of love and comfort are not easy feelings to deal with especially for a child whose only eight years old.
The dream of Ahmed can tell the kind of feelings he has, and the kind of fears he kept inside, both Mustafa’s and Ahmed ways to bring out their own fears are signs that these two boys are having a big burden, and that they both can not deal with easily.
For me as a mother it is difficult to discover that my children will face the same feelings of insecurity in every time they hear the sound of a gun shooting, or shelling, and that they will experience the same traumatic experience over and over again, and therefore, will accumulate the same consequences over and over again.
I know that this case is not only a case limited to my children, but to all the children of Gaza who have to live the scary moments of an Israeli operation, the sound of the F16, the heavy shooting of the apache, and experience the loss of someone dear in front of their eyes. But what I can not tell is the effect of such feelings on these children lives, in their future, in their way of accepting or refusing experiences, and finally on the way they will be in the future.
-###-
May 7, 2008 By Najwa Sheikh, in Gaza
