The Jabberwock

JabberWrites Creative Non-Fiction Winner

“Coming out from the window was an eye-piercing sunbeam, it shined directly onto his face but he didn’t seem to bat an eye at the fact that it was directly staring into his eyes as if he were unaffected. His top priority was to get us out or killed, and I could’ve sworn at any moment then we would’ve been dead. It felt as if he was coming down from the sky to tell us what our fate would be and I was mentally preparing myself for the afterlife.“ It was a story that was engraved into my head, but no matter how many times my grandma had told me this story, I would ask again “Tata, what happened when you left Palestine?” Sitting there on the rough Persian carpet in her house, this nostalgic memory happened on multiple occasions. Every time I’d ask her to tell me this story once again, and she had no problem doing so because it was the only memory that she had left of her presence in Palestine. I’d always felt like I had a true connection to the land that I’d never been to whenever she would tell me this disheartening story, as if I were there with her when the Israeli troops stormed Palestine in 1948 murdering almost a million Palestinians and displacing hundreds of thousands. 

The sounds of screams of horror filled her neighborhood; gunshots, and bombs dropping filled the sky and the aroma was filled with the smell of blood.; tThat was when they knew it was time to leave. “The only two choices left for Palestinians were either to leave their homes or get killed.” My grandmother always talked about how her family had heard about their own neighbor’s being murdered on the own floors of their homes, as they saw blood gushing out of the doors of homes that were once filled with laughter. The blood drying up on the sand, all of this serving as their signal to either leave or be killed next. They didn’t want to be destined to the same fate so they chose to leave. “No man, woman, or child was safe from the attacks; it didn’t matter how old you were or who you were, if they knew you were Palestinian and still walking on what they proclaimed to be ‘their soil’ you’d be killed,” She said. “They were ruthless,” said my grandma.“So they wouldn’t spare anyone? Not even kids?” I asked, and she would always reply with the horrifying story that had been constantly repeated to her and then passed onto me. “They sliced open the pregnant woman’s body, and then shot the unborn child”. 

My grandmother’s family had everything taken away; their property, their belongings, and their lives. There was always a focus on the gold necklace that my grandmother was forced to leave behind, she talked about how when she put it into the sunlight it would shine back with an eye-blinding gleam it had a pendant in the dainty shape of a rose, in honor of her name Zahra which meant rose in Arabic; it was left behind in her homeland. Ever since then my grandmother and no one in my family has been able to go back to Palestine, and the connection to our homeland in form or shape is physical. Although I’ve never been to Palestine nor have my parents, her continuous stories were all that I had left of my homeland. Prior to hearing these I never understood as to why my mother always forced me and my brothers to only speak Arabic when we were at home or why she always told us about Palestine until my grandma told us about her series of experiences. Before my grandma told me her long kept stories, I’d always found it unfortunate being Palestinian not because of the ongoing conflict but because of the stigma and confusion surrounding my country, “Isn’t it called Israel?” “That doesn’t exist, it’s called Israel”. It was almost as if anytime I’d mentioned being Palestinian, I’d be immediately seen as a symbol for controversy. Mentioning Palestine or being Palestinian has caught me up in constant arguments with many people being called things like ‘anti-semitic’ for wanting to get my people’s land back, or has resulted in endless conversations of me trying to educate others on the conflict and it ends with me giving up following the clear disinterest of emotions I’d receive. 

Yet as I’ve matured I’ve realized that my ethnicity is an important part of me; and it should never be something that I have to be self-conscious about. I’ve grown to realize that my moms emphasis on having a deep sense of connection with my heritage, as well as my grandma’s endless stories of her time in Palestine all are an important part of my life. Whenever I would finish the conversations I’d have with my grandma about her stories, it would lead me to deeply think about everything. I often go to bed that night dreaming about being In Jerusalem, the smell of Poppies and Mediterranean cuisine filling the air while I ate olives on the steps of the Al-Aqsa mosque, and the savory taste of the Palestinian signature olives filling my mouth. The idea of living in a liberated Palestinian, with no sounds of the Israeli occupation forces firing their guns and murdering innocent civilians. Instead, the sound of bullets being shot through the hearts of Palestinians would be replaced with the sound of birds chirping, putting everyone’s hearts at peace. One day the Palestinian diaspora will finally be allowed back into their homes all with the green passports with the words Falastine in bold and gold and the map of Palestine on the front with not a single piece of it missing. This will one day become all history, and everyone will live on the same piece of land in peace just as how it was before, it’s a dream that I aspire to one day come to life. But as of now Palestine will always stay in our hearts as our Holy land.