October 7th

We all have different timelines when it comes to moving through the five stages of grief.

As for me, it might take longer than it does for most people.

It didn’t start on October 7th, but that date left a profound wound in my heart.

I marked that day, and the days that followed, as one of the greatest moments of helplessness I have ever felt during these difficult times. For the past three years, I have mourned the thought that I should have done better.

I couldn’t escape one regret after another, one feeling of guilt after another—thinking that this should have happened differently, or that should have been done another way. I should have done this. They shouldn’t have done that.

And yet, I knew, deep down, that all this overthinking did nothing but wound me even deeper.

So today, let me make up my mind and shift the paradigm.

Let me mark that day not only as a day of helplessness, but as a day of awakening.

A day when more people began to see Palestine.
To become aware of what was happening within.
To ask what we, as human beings, could—and should—do.

The road may be long, perhaps even longer than we imagine.

But He never commanded us to reach the finish line, did He?

He only asks us to keep moving.

To keep walking.

On the right path.

And to my Palestinian brothers and sisters,

I am still holding on to the same dream I have always held: that we will be free, from the river to the sea. That we will one day pray at Al-Aqsa in dignity and freedom.

Even though my tongue was tied, and I no longer had the courage to ask, “How are you?”

I said nothing.

But my heart never stopped praying for you.

Forgive me.

I’m begging you.