GRIEF | PALESTINE | WORLD

Embrace Your Grief, and Resist!

Palestine: Victory does not negate grief

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For one day on Saturday the 18th, I played piano happily, no tears and no dissonant notes. That piano had been my emotional confidant for over a year, with whom I conversed in somber, funereal, and nihilistic tones.

With the ceasefire in place, I feel like we’re waking up from a dream. A part of me wants to believe it’s all been one long nightmare, and everything is really OK in Gaza, and no one has died.

“The Light of Time” (Art by Palestinian artist Manal Deeb at ygalleri.com, by permission)

I guess that’s the first stage of grief: Denial!

We grieve because we have loved;
Our tears, that love distilled.

It is OK to mourn.
Victory —
Does not negate grief.

To live is to feel, so —
Embrace your grief.

We grieve not only those lives shredded in Gaza;
The children orphaned, the families erased,
The wrecked schools, historic buildings, or hospitals …

We grieve the impotence of international institutions.
We grieve the desecration of human rights.
We grieve the absence of accountability.

We grieve the lack of trustworthy media.
We grieve the power of money.
We grieve the silence of the many.

As you see, our grief overflows the gates of past into the present.
Yes, we do grieve the present!

A present where ‘Never Again’ has become ‘Again and again’.
A present where five individuals on the platform —
Melt the world and half its people to feed the insatiable hunger of their pockets.

So, lest we grieve the future, too,
Let us turn our grief into resistance,
And action!

Now!

With love,
Ramsey Hanhan
Author and Public Speaker

“Tell me more about the Israelis” | Palestine Book | Fugitive Dreams