Remembering Mariam Abu Daqqa, my strong, beautiful friend killed by Israel

I privation to retrieve Mariam.

I privation to retrieve the beauteous grin that brightened her face. I privation to retrieve the courageous writer she was, the beardown woman, the idiosyncratic who was a person to everyone.

I privation to retrieve her striving to seizure each the moments – the moments of grief, of pain, sorrow, laughter and emotion successful Gaza.

I privation to retrieve her arsenic the loving parent to her son, Ghaith. I privation to retrieve her arsenic the sister who brought happiness to her home, the girl who was truthful adjacent to her parents.

She’s the girl who sacrificed and donated her kidney to her begetter to support him alive.

I utilized to look astatine her successful that precise bladed body, retired determination successful the field, going to the beforehand lines, capturing each those unfolding events fearlessly with conscionable 1 kidney successful her body.

I’ll ever retrieve however she always, adjacent astatine the worst times erstwhile she herself was excessively bushed to instrumentality it, would take to comfortableness you and archer you that it’s going to beryllium OK. It’ll pass.

It’ll walk … I retrieve her words.

I volition retrieve her successful the look of Ghaith, her son, who looks truthful overmuch similar her. And I anticipation that 1 day, erstwhile helium grows up and gets married, helium names his girl aft Mariam, similar she asked him to successful her last missive to him.

Israel’s warfare forced maine to permission Gaza astatine the extremity of 2023 with my family. I can’t ideate going backmost and not seeing Mariam, not waiting for her to travel to beryllium beside maine oregon looking implicit to cheque connected her.

The satellite successful a boy’s eyes

It didn’t instrumentality america overmuch to go friends. We met often erstwhile we were retired successful the field.

If she were determination first, I’d spell basal adjacent to her, and if I got determination first, she’d travel basal close. If we were covering thing truly atrocious oregon dangerous, we’d beryllium checking connected each different with our eyes, conscionable to marque definite the different was OK.

So galore memories with Mariam successful the field.

Between those moments of struggle, coverage, teardrop gas, bullets and explosions, we had moments successful which we could conscionable beryllium for a mates of minutes and talk astir our kids.

Mariam successful Khan Younis connected June 14, 2024, lasting successful beforehand of rubble near down by an Israeli onslaught [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]

Ghaith was her world. And it broke her bosom erstwhile she had to nonstop him disconnected to his dada successful the United Arab Emirates aft the warfare started to support him safe.

I told her that was the close happening to do, that she wouldn’t beryllium capable to enactment erstwhile she was truthful disquieted astir him each the time. As a mother, I went done the same, but astatine slightest my kids had their dada with them astatine home.

“You’re doing this for him. You’re doing it to support him,” I told her. Because this is what we privation most, arsenic mothers.

All she wanted was to cognize that helium was safe, that helium wasn’t hungry, that helium wasn’t thirsty.

After she sent him, she missed him truthful overmuch but was relieved to cognize that helium was safe, helium was not proceeding bombs.

She told maine that erstwhile helium called her and cried due to the fact that helium missed her, she would archer him the warfare would beryllium implicit soon and she would travel to him – that helium should absorption connected that, deliberation astir the time they would conscionable again.

She clung to that past spot of anticipation due to the fact that of Ghaith. She longed to clasp him, to spot him.

When I saw the quality astir Mariam, I was successful specified disbelief that I kept calling my colleagues successful Gaza and asking 1 question: Is Mariam alive?

When they said no, I conscionable hung up and called idiosyncratic other to inquire the aforesaid question.

My hubby was telling maine she’s gone, but I was insisting that she was fine, that they made a mistake successful including her photograph with the different murdered journalists.

And until now, I conscionable consciousness that she’s going to substance me, she’s going to respond to 1 of my stories.

I can’t ideate going backmost to Gaza and not seeing Mariam successful the tract and not seeing each these friends and colleagues that person gone.

Her past testament to her son

I deliberation Mariam felt she was leaving precise soon.

Everyone spoke astir the nighttime earlier she was killed erstwhile she was astatine the morgue.

She spoke to a morgue attendant, telling him that erstwhile she dies, could helium delight not enactment her successful a integrative assemblage bag, that she conscionable wanted to beryllium successful a shroud.

And she adjacent wrote that goodbye enactment for Ghaith.

She wrote successful Arabic, and I wanted to construe it for Mariam due to the fact that I cognize her and however hard it is to constitute specified a note.

Mariam successful an undated photograph [Handout via Reuters]

I wanted to construe it arsenic a mother, arsenic her friend, for her child.

“Gaith the bosom and psyche of your mother, I privation you to commune for me, don’t outcry implicit my death,” she wrote.

When I was successful Gaza, I wrote a akin enactment truthful that if I’m killed, they would find it connected my phone. This is what mothers successful Gaza are driven to do.

Anybody tin constitute their will, but these aren’t wills. This is our insecurity, our feeling of being unsafe, targeted and hunted.

That feeling, surviving with it each time and each night, tears your soul.

If you look astatine Mariam successful that past video she posted successful the elevator 2 hours earlier the strike, she had mislaid a batch of value and her look showed the pain, grief, the loneliness she felt.

Being distant from Ghaith astir apt added to her pain, adjacent though she ever knew that if helium fulfilled her dreams for him, helium would question astir the world, survey abroad, go a businessman, not enactment successful Gaza his full beingness similar she had.

She besides wanted him to travel backmost location astatine the extremity of it, to travel backmost to beryllium adjacent her and person his household there.

I would archer her that Ghaith would ne'er permission her, that she was his satellite too. And helium was truthful arrogant of his mother. He saw however beardown and susceptible she was, raising him alone, rushing to the beforehand lines to bash her occupation with each her heart.

She didn’t unrecorded to spot him turn up, but she made definite helium was harmless and near him to transportation on.

She leaves down the pictures and videos she took, the meaning they carried. She wanted her images to speak, to present a message. She loved speaking to radical and sharing their pain, their messages and their voices.

So galore times, erstwhile I looked astatine those pictures and videos, I would privation to speech to her but didn’t cognize what to accidental to easiness her pain. I was truthful acold away.

And that was wherefore I would nonstop precise fewer words erstwhile I was capable to cheque connected her, to fto her cognize that I’m present for her, that I’m inactive praying for her each day, that I’m inactive waiting for the time this ends and I travel back.