Mariam should be in my mind.
I long for the lovely smile that made her face shine. I want to remember the brave journalist she was, the strong woman, and the friend who everyone referred to as.
I want to keep in mind all the times she tried to capture Gaza’s heartache, pain, sorrow, laughter, and love.
She is remembered as the loving mother of Ghaith, her son. I want to remember her as the daughter who was so close to her parents and the sister who brought happiness to her home.
She is the daughter of a father who gave up her kidney to keep him alive.
With just one kidney inside her body, I used to stare at her while she was out on the field, on the front lines, capturing every moment of what was happening.
I’ll always remember how she would choose to comfort you and assure you that everything will work out, even when she was at her worst when she was already exhausted. It won’t go away.
I can recall her words, but it won’t pass.
In front of Ghaith, her son, who resembles her, I will always remember her. And I hope that he names his daughter Mariam the way she requested in her final letter to him when he grows up and gets married.
At the end of 2023, Israel’s war forced me to flee Gaza with my family. I can’t imagine going back and not seeing Mariam, waiting for her to sit next to me, or checking her out.
A boy’s view of the world
We eventually became friends without much effort. When we were outside in the fields, we frequently met.
If she arrived first, I would stand next to her, and if I arrived first, she would stand up to me. We would be checking each other with our eyes if we were covering something extremely bad or dangerous just to make sure the other was fine.
There are so many vivid images of Mariam outside.
We had moments where we could just sit for a few minutes and talk about our kids between those struggles, coverage, tear gas, bullets, and explosions.
Her entire world was Ghaith. After the war broke out, she had to transfer him to his father in the United Arab Emirates.
When she was so worried about him all the time, I told her that was the right thing to do. I experienced the same experiences as a mother, but at least my children had their father with them at home.
You are supporting him by doing this. You’re keeping him safe, I said to her. Because we as mothers want this most of all.
She only wanted to know that he was safe, that he wasn’t hungry, and that he wasn’t thirsty.
She missed him dearly after sending him, but she was relieved to learn that he was safe and that no bombs were being blown at him.
She told me that he should concentrate on that and consider the day they would meet again when he called her and cried because he missed her.
Because of Ghaith, she held onto that last ounce of hope. She aspired to see him and hold him.
I kept calling my colleagues in Gaza and enquiring whether Mariam was still alive when I first learned about Mariam.
I simply hung up and called a different person to ask the same question when they said no.
I was telling my husband that she was gone, but I was telling him that she was fine and that they had a mistake in including her in a photo with another journalist who had been murdered.
I just feel like she’s going to text me or respond to one of my stories up until now.
I can’t imagine returning to Gaza and not seeing Mariam or all of her friends and coworkers who have gone.
Her final testimony to her son
Mariam must have known that she would leave very soon.
Everyone mentioned her death at the morgue the night before she died.
She told the morgue attendant that she only wanted to be in a shroud when she passed away. He asked her to put her in a plastic body bag.
She even left a note saying “goodbye” to Ghaith.
Because I know her and find it challenging to write such a note, I wanted to translate it for Mariam.
As a mother, friend, and child of hers, I wanted to translate it.
She wrote, “Gaith the heart and soul of your mother, I want you to pray for me, don’t cry over my death.”
In Gaza, I wrote a similar note so that anyone who found it on my phone could read it if I was killed. Mothers in Gaza are compelled to do this.
Anyone can write a will, but these are not wills. We feel unsafe, targeted, and hunted because of this insecurity.
Your soul is shattered by that feeling, living with it every day and every night.
In the two hours before the strike, Mariam had lost a lot of weight and had experienced the pain, grief, and loneliness she felt in that final video that she posted in the elevator.
Even though she always believed that if Ghaith’s dreams were realized, he would travel the world, study abroad, start a business, and not reside in Gaza like she had always imagined, his pain probably increased because of it.
At the conclusion of the process, she also desired that he bring his family there and return to be with her.
I would say to her that Ghaith would never leave her and that he was also in his world. And his mother was so kind to him. He saw her strength and ability, raising him by himself, and giving it her all.
She left him to carry on as he was raised, but she didn’t live to see him grow up.
The meanings that were lost in the photos and videos she captured are left behind. She desired to convey a message through her images. She enjoyed expressing her emotions, thoughts, and opinions with others.
I’ve talked to her so many times but haven’t thought of anything to say to lessen her pain as a result of looking at those pictures and videos. I was so far away.
Source: Aljazeera
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