OUR PAIN CAN NEVER TRULY BE FELT BY OTHERS
Peace. My brother and fellow human, Dr. lan, left me this hat before returning home. I tried it on after my shift, and I took a quick selfie with my sweet niece, Ciela.
I knew l would feel numb and exhausted after my shift yesterday, but I never imagined it could be this awful. I feel so different than I was two days ago, worse in every way, and I feel it everywhere. I'm more sensitive, and the frustration inside me is eating me alive.
My mother told me she knew Kamelia, one of the severely injured women I tried to save yesterday. She was from my mom's extended family, and she and my mother were friends. She told me Kamelia was a kind, respectful mother. She died alone in the ICU, after four foreign doctors, two locals, and | desperately tried to find any way to save her. We couldn't take her for scans quickly enough, to give her even a small chance of hope, or perhaps just more torture. There were too many wounds, and too much shrapnel carved into her face and body to count. Her injuries were so severe, that some of my colleagues felt a small, bitter relief, because at least she wouldn't have to survive them alone.
My sister told me that she had spoken with her friend, Batool, who was from the same family. They had talked just the day before, like two normal human beings, before Batool was injured and her entire family was wiped out, with no survivors except her. Twelve members of her family were taken in a single second, with a single missile, with a single "approved" decision by those who claim they brought us "peace." less
Another patient I tried to save, was a man with a familiar face. Shrapnel in his abdomen. Another piece in his brain. He vomited blood while speaking to me in unbearable pain, begging for help, saying he was dying. We did everything we could, but he died in the operating room minutes later. I learned that on my way home, and I couldn't believe it.
And my friend's uncle; the man whose beautiful voice filled the mosques with peace, reciting the Quran in prayers, a video of him from just the day before left a crushing heaviness on my chest when I heard his voice today.
Our pain can never truly be felt by others.
I feel so hopeless. All day long, I wished I hadn't survived. Tears fall the noment I think about anything that happened. How could anyone bear this? I'm traumatized to a point where I cannot imagine, leaving all of this behind, and caring about my own future; while living somewhere else as if nothing happened. Not while my people are still suffering. Not while they still need every bit of strength I still have.
That same morning, I saw so many children and young people suffering from infectious diseases, and I myself had to continue my shift while suffering from a bad cold.
Our pain can never truly be felt by others.
If the price of staying true to them is to feel this pain every single day of my life, then I will pay it, Ibecause abandoning them would hurt even more. I don't truly want to die. I want everyone here to feel less pain and less agony. And I want those who chOse our suffering, and those who celebrate it, to face a justice that never forgets and an accountability that never ends. To burn in hell, and never die. And for those who have never truly felt our pain; I want them to finally do.
Our pain can never truly be felt by others.
