Death Takes Those We Love by Ameera, Gaza, Palestine

Death and life are two parallel lines in the existence of a human, but death eventually meets the line of life.

This story is different because it touches my soul and makes me feel like I want to scream and cry with all my energy because someone I know is dead. Death sometimes comes with many reasons, but sometimes it comes suddenly with no reason at all.

My grandmother has always lived with my family. I loved her since I was a baby and she saw me as a daughter because she never had one. I recall many memories when I think about her, flashes in my head moving quickly and stopping suddenly at the memory of her death.

On November 15th, 2010, the weather was good and I was in my bed, but for some reason something made me want to see my grandmother. She had Alzheimer’s and this caused her to be unable to eat, talk, walk or move properly; my parents and I took care of her like a child. These were the most difficult years of my life, and on that day my head hurt and I felt like something bad was going to happen.

I went to ask my mother: “Is she still alive?”. I looked into my parent’s bedroom and my grandmother was with my mother, being fed like a child. She wore a beautiful dress and ornaments and my mother had put her Hejab حجاب in a different way that day. I went and sat in front of my grandmother, she was still breathing. I don’t know why but I felt worried and returned to my bed but couldn’t sleep. A few minutes passed but it felt like hours, and then I heard my mother scream. I ran back to the room they were in and my grandmother had died! How did that happen? I had only been gone for a few minutes! She had just eaten in peace!

And why? Why do the people we love always go to the sky? I couldn’t stand. I remember touching her feet and feeling how cold they were. I screamed “Tata تيتا”. She didn’t answer me, and she always answered me! While everyone in my family has not always answered, she answered me, because I was like her daughter.

She still loves me now! I can feel her love because she always visits me in my dreams. She always smiles at me, and I always speak to her and say, “Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you take me with you? I will remember you always.” Because you are not dead, you will always live inside my heart.

I miss you “Tata، تيتا”. Please remember that death does not wait. Death does not play with us. Death always makes us feel sad and takes the people we hold dear.  It is the hardest and the toughest thing, and it can happen to anyone. So we need to love all the people we know and not ignore anyone. We should live and feel life with everyone we know because we don’t know when they will be dead.

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