innocent blood isnt worthless
I was on my way to the refugee camps where I worked as a social worker. There were hundreds of people of Palestine living there due to either losing their homes or their families in continuous bombing and firing. My job was to take good care of these poor fugitives and I loved doing that. This reminded me of my own childhood. Moreover, today was going to be a busy day as there was a child’s birthday in the camps. My co-workers and I had to decorate her camp with some lovely balloons. I had even baked a small chocolate cake for her garnished with rainbow sprinkles.
As I reached, the ten year old birthday girl was sitting alone in her camp on the mattress, crying. I tried to ask her the reason and she told me that she missed her parents who had died six years ago in a train bomb blast. I was extremely disturbed and stunned but controlled my emotions and tried my best to console the little girl. I told her about the birthday cake I had baked for her and the unicorn diary I had bought for her as a present. Her face immediately lit up and she started smiling delightfully.
We beautifully put up colorful balloons on the wall and arranged a little party for all children of the refugee camps. The cake was distributed amongst all the excited people and they all wished her a happy birthday and many more years to come. Thankfully, nothing went wrong and we managed everything quite well. The party went smoothly and nicely with everybody, especially the birthday girl, happy at the end of the day.
After reaching home, I lay restlessly on my bed at night, continuously changing sides. After some hours of drowsiness and agitation, l finally went into a deep sleep. Darkness! Darkness was what I could see all around me. All of a sudden, the whole scene completely changed. With the darkness vanishing, l could see my 8th birthday being happily celebrated. There is a beautiful pink cake on the table along with purple and pink balloons, wall hangings and scattered confetti. I am joyously running around and playing in my garden around the beautiful pink roses with my brother and all my friends who have come to the party. After a while, we cut the cake and are clapping merrily. My father gives me a lovely school bag as my birthday gift and hugs me. My brother, four years older than me, has presented me with an adorable coffee-colored poodle.it is my most favorite present of all others and I have named my dog crystal. Then, the situation takes a complete 360 degree turn. My happiness and joy vanishes into thin air and all that can be seen is smoke, Fire and blood – the scene is all, complete chaos. It somewhat seems like a funeral. I am unable to grasp the situation and am extremely confused. I try to gather myself and with wobbly feet and trembling hands, I move forward to remove the white sheet from the faces of the two dead bodies lying before me. I had been feeling quite uneasy and was shaking on the bed. Just as the sheet was removed from the faces, I woke up with a jump, soaked in perspiration.I tried to recall my dream and realized that it was nothing but my trauma of almost six years; my father and brother got martyred in a bomb blast on the train. It was my tenth birthday on the day they were killed. It is my sixteenth birthday today and this horrifying dream comes to me each night before my birthday. I even gave away crystal after a week of my father and my brother’s death because each time I looked at him, he reminded me of my brother and our beautiful childhood memories. After thinking for a minute or two, I quickly ran outside to shut the windows and fasten the doors. Firing and shooting had begun once again after some months of peace. I was all prepared to hide safely in the basement where l would sit hours and hours waiting for either my life to end or the firing to end. The bombing was extremely unpredictable. You could never know when a bomb would explode in your own house turning everything to ashes. It was a frightful feeling. The thought of getting fired or burnt alive made a shiver run through the bones.
Palestine was a frightening place to live. I don’t think anybody would purposely live in such a place knowing that his life was at extreme risk and yet many of us were. Many people would not have witnessed more horrifying things throughout their lives than the blood shed that we have seen in our childhood only. A lot of irreparable damage has been done to many of us although our fault is not visible. We are innocent and unarmed civilians who have been killed from the first day to this day. I believe that if any such brutal action was taken by our government it would have been named as cruelty or manslaughter. These European countries would have joined hands against us. But does all of this happen when the situation is completely opposite. Why don’t all the countries involved in this inhumanity get the title of ruthless or merciless? Some Serious action should be taken against this severity. By killing someone’s father, son, brother, sister or mother, they gain their share of happiness and contentment, but do they realize what a huge loss they are causing to the family of the deceased. Each and every day there are funerals in our houses, but is there anybody to console us or take a stand for us. Unfortunately, this world which has powerful countries and administrations doesn’t have people with powerful morals or ethics. These forces against us are quite dominant and yet very submissive. I honestly wonder how these brutal devils are able to sleep at night with the burden of killing so many people, shedding unlimited blood and making many eyes cry unstoppably. Won’t the terror of this cruelty and murder make their breath freeze? Can these enemy soldiers ever think of losing their own family; their father or their brother or their son? Can they imagine themselves weeping and wailing, with a horrible thought of their loved ones lying under the serenely quiet layers of the earth?
The world stands shoulder to shoulder with the cruel and further oppresses the innocent. These countries can do everything they want; even save us but that depends on their will. There are many public figures who come to our refugee camps to take pictures with these homeless, poor people and children. They give extremely emotional speeches expressing their love and support. Well, giving online messages or posting supportive pictures on social media does somewhat give us moral support that somebody is standing with us but unfortunately, that is only temporary. Those online messages cannot clear or solve our problems that we are bound to face every day. Thanks to these savage countries’ mercilessness, my father and brother, who were my only family, are not there by my side today. I don’t even have my mother with me today as she died when l was months old.
But, do all of these deaths make the cruel people realize the value of our loved ones they are snatching away from us in seconds. I truly hope it does and that they understand the importance of our families in our lives.
Those hard times of my life did somewhat feel like never ending but I realized that no! Everything in this world is just temporary; be it happiness or sorrow. All that happened in my childhood made me grow up into a mature and thoughtful adult. My hardships made me kind from heart and strong from core and molded me from an impotent and powerless child to a brave and fearless young woman. I fear my lord and no other human power. Neither death nor blood scares me. I cannot stop crying for my family but I am indeed a new person with the passing time. I made many new friends at college. Michelle, my friend at college, is also now my roommate. She had also lost her family in a bomb blast at a hospital. I absolutely love to hang out with her and she is to some extent the reason for the change in my personality. Michelle is like my soul mate who knows and can understand my griefs. She is the loveliest person I have met in my entire life. I can’t possibly think of losing her; even this horrible thought shakes me to the core.
It feels like I have moved on a lot in life with a new and more joyful side of me. I have learned to ignore the negative or dark side of life and look towards the optimistic and brighter side.
I hope that the orphan child from the refugee camps who celebrated her birthday yesterday and all other children of Palestine have a beautiful and bright future and peaceful lives.
