- Occupied Jerusalem- I could have told
Jessica that this world was never meant for one as beautiful
as her, but she was too young to understand. I sit next to her
hospital bed crying but all my tears will not alleviate my
baby’s suffering.
-
- I always knew that Jessica was special
and beautiful. But then, I am her mother and all mothers think
their children are special and beautiful. Yet, to prove I was
right, many of my friends and relatives would comment each
time they saw the child with, "Masha’allah, your
daughter is like a ray of sunlight and she is so precocious
too."
-
- Jessica was my pride and joy. She kept me
company and inspite of the Intifada and the brutal occupation
and shelling of our homes, the killing of children throwing
rocks, the medieval trenches dug round our cities to cut each
Palestinian village off from all others, I could always find
joy in Jessica’s smile and hope in her laughter.
-
- I am her mother. I carried her 9 months
and gave birth to a normal healthy baby. I thanked God when
Jessica was born though she was not a boy, she was my
everything. Her gender did not matter, I loved her from the
moment she was brought into this world.
-
- But Jessica had no idea that there were
those who hated her just because she was born Palestinian. She
was too young to understand that her life meant nothing to her
occupiers and that the extinction of all Palestinians would
please Israeli leaders to no end. Why pretend that such
leaders cherished the sanctity of all life when in reality,
the only lives such tyrants value is their own and that of
some of their fellow Israelis.
-
- I sit next to my baby and I continue to
cry. Tears just roll down my face and I know there will be no
end to these tears. I wish that the shrapnel that took Jessica’s
eye had taken mine instead. I could bear to go through the
rest of my life with only one eye, but why should my daughter
at such an early age have to face the rest of her life with
only one eye? Now a bandage covers the place where only
yesterday her eye sparkled when happy and clouded when upset.
That was before she got hit. When I heard her scream after the
shrapnel struck her, I felt like my heart was being torn out
of my body and when I saw blood pouring out all over where her
eye had been, I almost fainted. It was only the emergency of
the moment that kept me intact and partly sane.
-
- We come from the little peaceful town of
Bethlehem, the birthplace of the prophet Jesus. But since the
Uprising, there is no peace anywhere in all of the Occupied
Territories. My Jessica is too young to throw rocks. She is
too young to confront Israeli tanks or army jeeps. She does
not understand war or hate. She has always had love in her
heart for all those around her. But what will Jessica think of
the world now? How will Jessica grow up with only one eye and
what are her prospects for marriage? What man will ever want
to look beyond the artificial organ that may yet one day be
implanted and see her for what she really is, a person to love
and be loved?
-
- I hold her tiny white bloodstained hands.
While my tears continue to fall, I look at her rosy lips and
her tousled locks, her pink countenance with half-dried tears
and her innocence as she tries to sleep off her intense pain.
I will not be able to erase the horror of getting shot in the
eye from her memory and I know that every time she hears
gunshots and mortars, she will shake in fear and relive those
bitter moments when she first got hit. I know she will relive
those cruel moments for the rest of her life and even though I
am her mother, I cannot make it right for her this time. I
cannot kiss away her pain as I have always done every time she
got hurt or didn’t feel well.
-
- I blame everyone for Jessica’s loss.
Her loss is my loss, but her loss is the loss of everyone. Not
so long before Jessica lost her eye, the rich powerful Arab
leaders had a summit. They should have seriously addressed the
issues of the Palestinian Uprising and done something positive
to stop the continuing bloodbath being waged against us. But
they all walked away from the Summit the way they went in,
full of stuffed stomachs and addled minds.
-
- All these leaders are selfish and greedy.
They don’t worry about their own people so how could I
expect them to care about Palestinians? They are lazy and
impotent and are not concerned about what the rest of the
world says about them or what their own people think about
them. And each rich Arab leader thinks that by savagely
suppressing his own people that he will secure his thrown and
continue to add more billions to his estate. But each leader
so easily forgets that there will be a day when they will be
held accountable for their apathy and impotency.
-
- I blame President Bush too. He has no
heart, he has no conscience and he did not even allow or
insist that an International force be sent to protect us. What
Bush and the world fail to see is that the real Holocaust is
Palestinian.
-
- It is night now. My head perches next to
my baby’s bandaged missing eye. My tears have soaked her
pillowcase. Outside, the stars still shine and the moon casts
it pale yellow shadow over her hospital room. I smell her
dried blood and the antiseptics of the hospital ward mix with
the sweet scent of jasmine and roses. Outside her window,
crickets still chirp, unaware of her tragedy and the tragedy
that is being carried on all around her.
-
- The silver thorn, the bloody rose lie
crushed and broken on the virgin snow. Now I think I know what
you tried to say to me and how I will suffer for my sanity,
but I could have told you Jessica that this world was never
meant for one as beautiful as you. Only too soon now will you
understand the immensity of these words.
