Ramble Day 19: Stolen Dreams

My mind keeps going back to a boy I know who had dreamt of working for a prestigious tech company and planned to study in Germany.

Instead, he never went to college, never had a graduation. He spent the past two years living in a school, living in his destroyed house once he was allowed back, then shortly after getting bombed, while preparing for a family gathering, where he had lost so many beloved family members, he was getting displaced again to a relative’s house with shrapnel that, to this day, remain in his arms because hospitals are under constant fire by Israeli forces.

A boy who asked me to look over his testimony to check if his English was okay. And I’ve always loved editing.
But how can I edit a testitmony written in the case of not surviving genocide and ending with the request of not being reduced to a number, a statistic?

It felt surreal, and incredibly emotional, but nowadays, heartbreak and sadness are usually accompanied by a rage, I’ve never known before, confined in my body.

Back to him, I keep thinking about him, because how silly am I to keep complaining about not getting a proper graduation due to COVID?

Another reason his story stays in my heart is because while the war is threatning the entire Middle East, I’ve been thinking about a looot of things, but one of my more trivial fears is never traveling abroad and getting my masters, something I’ve always dreamt of, or worse, leaving home and living abroad with my heart in my throat, constantly checking up on my family, on the news, and regretting it all.

May I never see his name added to those killed, may he, and his people, taste freedom once again, may their hearts resist all the loss and build something new, may they one day live, learn and create, and not just survive.