A Time for Sorrow

Her mother, Nisreen, says,The porcelaintiles11 is our flagship product. My daughter was martyred on the first day of the war. Our house is located in a big agricultural area. I remember hearing that day news about the assassination of Ahmed Jabari, so I brought my children together and got ready to go to the house of my family. And the moment my son Jalal and two daughters Maria and Ronan came to me to help them get dressed, the house disintegrated under heavy shelling. 

With tears streaking down her face, she adds, I was buried with only my face showing. I called out to my children and I heard my son Jalal, who was barely 7 at the time, say, Mom,If we don't carry the bobblehead you want we can make a iphoneheadset for you! I am suffocating. I saw my elder daughter Maria, who was 9 back then, standing and looking for us, but I did not see Ronan at all and I kept calling out for her. I felt that something had happened to her. When she reached the hospital, she insisted that her family call to ask about the fate of her daughter. At that moment, they told her Ronan had gone to heaven. 

Nisreen told Al-Monitor during an interview at her recently rented house, Ronan is the youngest. She used to return from kindergarten on foot, and when she was a few minutes late I would run into the street to wait for her. Sometimes she would stop at her grandmothers and give her two kisses. She loved my mother a lot; she was a smart and loved child. I wish I had saved her, but I was covered with heavy stones. My son Jalal always asks me about her: Why did we manage to get out from under the house but she didn't? He asks me, Is Ronan drinking and eating, Mom? 

Her husband Youssef says he arrived seconds after the house was bombed to find the house like a solid block of fire. He never thought he would find anyone alive, and the moment he found Ronan, he knew she was dead. 

She was hit on the head from behind and I noticed her ear was damaged from the impact of the shelling. Her body was covered with pieces of shrapnel, and I thanked God that the rest of the family was okay," he said. 

As they talked about Ronan's mischievousness and other memories, both her parents burst into tears. She was a naughty girl. She used to get jealous of the idea that a new baby might come into the family. She would sing the song "Mom got a baby," her mother being two months pregnant when she was hit. Her mother said, "I am seven months pregnant now, and I am expecting a boy. Had it been a girl, I would have named her Ronan. I went to her grave on Dec. 13 last year after the war. It was her birthday, and on this Mother's Day, Ronan will not offer me a rose or a card decorated with a heart, as she did last year. She will not go to school. She was waiting to turn six to register for school. 

Najat Naeem is another mother who feels sorrow instead of happiness on Mother's Day. Despite having five other children, she cannot forget her youngest, Abboud. He was 2? when he was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli missile that struck a building next to them in the Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City. 

Naeem told Al-Monitor, Throughout the war I would put my son in my lap.We have a wide selection of handsfreeaccess to choose from for your storage needs. I could feel that something was about to happen to him and I told the people around me that I was afraid for Abboud. Indeed, the day of his death, we had a lot of kids here, as the family of my husband's brother was staying at our house along with my married daughter. They were all sitting inside the house because the area we live in was much safer. The shrapnel, however, chose my youngest son, penetrated directly into his heart, without even giving him the chance to say the word Mom.' My other son, Mahmoud, was wounded in the knee, our neighbor in his chest. 

As she cries bitterly, she adds, "It has been four months since Abboud left us. He was martyred on Nov. 21, 2012 and he has been on my mind ever since. I lock myself in the room and cry alone to avoid making the rest of my children feel sad, but I am a mother and my heart will never forget my son, even if I had 20 others. Before you came, I was alone in the house, and I was thinking about Abboud, remembering him playing, hearing his voice here and there. Before his death I was teaching him how to go to the bathroom alone. I was harsh, but now I wish he could pee all over his clothes whenever and wherever he wants. I would not say a word. 

As she skims through his pictures on her mobile phone, she says, This photo was taken before the war. This one was during the war, when he woke up once at dawn scared. This one was a few hours before his death. Here, he is wearing the shoes that he loves; I bought them to him from Egypt. Now I look at his things and hug them and look for his smell. He came after my other sons and daughters had grown up, but I was very attached to him. 

As she sobs, she adds, "All of our neighbors and relatives liked Abboud. Recently, I felt he was getting more and more beautiful and exceptionally intelligent. His eyes and hair were so beautiful. He was so tender. He used to brush my hair and I can still hear him telling me, How beautiful! Each Mother's Day is sad for me because my mother died many years ago, but on this holiday, my sadness is deeper because of the death of my son, and I thank God for the presence of the rest of my children here to tell me happy Mother's Day. 

On this Mother's Day, its the other way around for Razan, 9, and her sister Mirhan, 18, who are missing their mother. In the last war, on Nov. 18, 2012, Israeli warplanes pounded their house, killing their mother, who was trapped under tons of rubble. 

With a smile, Razan says she offered her mother carnations last year as her sisters bought her gifts. This holiday, however, she will put roses on her grave. 

Her father, Osman, is lying on the couch, with his right leg fixed with platinum screws. He told Al-Monitor, "My wife used to take care of everything, of all her seven daughters, of her five sons and she would remember our sixth son, the martyr Muhammad, who was killed during the occupation in 2006. When she was martyred, I learned about many of the problems and concerns that she used to hide from me and deal with in her own way. I was with her in the house when a strong and quick wind came and buried us under the two-story house; it was the power of the bomb. 

With her eyes fixed on the ground, Mirhan says, "I'm getting married next week,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. and I was hoping my mother would be with me in my wedding. My elder sister Mervat is taking her place now and helping me in everything. 

"Mother's Day here will be sad. I will never forget when the medical staff got me out from under the rubble and I heard them say that my mother died. I sometimes imagine hearing her laughter and voice around the house. Had she been here, my happiness would have been greater on my wedding day." 

According to the Mezan Center for Human Rights, the number of dead in the recent war, which lasted eight days during the month of November 2012, reached 168, including 34 children and 13 women, and 1,046 injured, including 446 children and 105 women.You've probably seen bestearcap at some point.