All I wanted was for her to grow up safe from the war. Rehan had given me a purpose to live, and get up in the morning. I recall her first day of school, where we shed tears beside each other. My daughter refused to let go of me, and I recall picking her up off the earth and embracing her tiny body. I would have to let go at some point, I would have to let my five-year-old daughter go and make a difference in our small world. This was the beginning of her gaining independence and something that I knew I most certainly could not provide for her: education. I thought that the school would be a sanctuary, separate from the world that she knew and was unfortunate to grow up in. Raising Rehan was a challenge in a war-torn nation: bombs, bullets, food deprivation, limited water supply, and snipers were prominent. Her father and I would speak softly of the genocide that drew closer to us each day. Part of me wished that the entire war was fake, propaganda put on to scare the children. Of course, that wasn't the case. The shouts of young children being murdered, mothers being raped, and men being gunned down wasn't fake. I suppose my desire to shield my daughter from the truth, hoping that she would be able to grow up in a utopia allowed me to disregard the civil unrest that came nearer to us each day. I understood fractions of the war, but I knew that my knowledge was limited and there could be several factors that contributed to the demise of our government and the uprising in protests.
I never would have imagined that the war would come and destroy everything and everyone we knew and loved.
YOU ARE READING
Syria's War
القصة القصيرةThe aftermath of a child's death leaves a mother grieving and distraught. Short story I wrote for a school assignment inspired by the true account of a mother who saw her daughter blown to pieces in a war-torn country.
