‘Father, why won’t you turn to look at me?’
“My heart broke when I lost my son Basir, and it broke again when I saw in your eyes a child searching for his father and unable to find him.”
Those outside Gaza barely feel the pain the Palestinians have been living through for the past three years of relentless bombings, sniper fire, starvation, deprivation of water, lack of electricity, lack of cooking gas, fighting the elements in ramshackle tents and damaged buildings, among countless other hardships, during the ongoing Western-backed Israeli genocide.
They merely see images of genocide survivors in extreme pain after losing another family member. They can never fully grasp what those who were martyred meant to the families they left behind, or know the sleepless nights they spent caring for and providing for their families, the high esteem in which their communities held them, their dreams, their ambitions, and their plans, had the Israelis not imposed a genocidal assault on them and eventually killed them.
They often know none of it.
Elegies by the loved ones of martyrs give some sense of their standing within their families and communities. Dr. Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of the Gaza Health Ministry, whose first-born son, Basir al-Bursh, was murdered by the Israelis in a targeted strike earlier this month, has written another moving reflection on life after his son’s martyrdom, this time through the eyes of his young grandson:
Father, Why Won’t You Turn to Look at Me
This is my grandson Munir, the son of my martyred son Basir. A mourner lifted him onto his shoulders so he could see his father one last time, while his father was carried on the shoulders of other men.
Hours earlier, Basir had carried Munir on his shoulders. He had played with him, laughed with him, and kissed his cheeks. Now the child looks at his father lying still, his eyes seeming to ask: Why won’t he call my name? Why won’t he pick me up? Will he come home with us?
Munir, I wish I could tell you that your father is asleep and that he will open his eyes when you call him. I am your grandfather. My heart broke when I lost my son Basir, and it broke again when I saw in your eyes a child searching for his father and unable to find him. All I can do when I see your face is hold you and weep with you.
The occupation may think that killing a father ends his story, and that his child will forget. How could Munir forget the day he saw his father carried on others’ shoulders instead of being carried on his father’s? How could Gaza’s children forget the voices they once ran toward, when they now search for those voices and find only silence?
One day Munir will grow up, and I will tell him about Basir, his father and my son: about his voice, his laughter, and his love for him; about the day Munir went out to say goodbye instead of seeing his father come home to hold him. I will preserve everything I can of his father, so that Munir knows his question was not lost in the noise of the funeral.
Munir, they took your father from your life, but they cannot take his name from your heart or your rights from this world. We will not forget. We will not forgive. We will not abandon our dreams. We will keep demanding justice for Basir and for every mother and father taken from their children. Your question will grow with you, and it will continue to confront the conscience of the world: Father, why won’t you turn to look at me? Who took you from me?
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