“You’re my heart and my two eyes,” I told her for the hundredth time that day.

“What about your ears!?” said my granddaughter Reem, beaming back at me and swinging our clasped hands.

Reem carried on speaking: “Can we get some fruit? I’d also like some shawarmas, but I’d give anything for fruit!”

I smiled and looked around. “Where will we get fruit here, my love? Look at this place. We cannot even get clothes and just about have shelter. There is no fruit because of the genocide.” I said to her, opening my arms to signal the devastation of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp. “But we have each other, and if I have you and your brother Tareq, I am the richest man in the world!”

Reem grinned up at me cheekily: “No! That can’t be! There are people who have millions of dollars! And they have as much fruit as they can eat!”

As she finished speaking, we turned into our apartment room and I sat down, allowing Reem to climb up on my lap as she always did. She gently pulled on my beard. I took her pigtails and pulled them back as gently as I could. It was our special act of love.

I hugged her and repeated myself: “You see, these rich people, they don’t have you. So they don’t have anything. But you can have their fruit.”

I pulled a small tangerine out of my pocket. Her face lit up as if I were giving her the Sun.

“I am going to eat this tomorrow when I am hungry! I can’t wait! May Allah bless you, granddad!” I even got a kiss. It must have been a good present.

I woke with a scream. Have you ever woken up screaming?

What woke me? Was it the noise of the airstrike or the rubble falling onto my face? Small details that do not matter. My thoughts flew to my children. Were they safe? I had to know, but I couldn’t move while the bombs were dropping. What refuge is this?

As soon as the bombing stopped, I rushed to them in the dead of the night, tripping over the concrete strewn all around to get to my family. I ran to their apartment and tore away the rubble to find them. I couldn’t find them. How can they be lost in one room? Rubble on rubble.

After agonizing minutes that felt like years, I heard my daughter’s labored breathing. She was alive! What about Reem? What about Tariq? As I turned over the stones that buried them, I saw my beautiful daughter, but where were my grandchildren?

As I helped free my daughter, I kept tearing away the rubble without feeling it tearing away my own skin.

My knees buckled when I found them, beautiful, sleeping bodies. Everything stopped. The sounds of this world vanished, and the relentless hum of drones and the thumping of my heart disappeared. I could only hear their laughter from yesterday. Only my heartache remained.

As I held her in my arms, ready for burial, I spoke to my Reem. I opened those perfect eyes and whispered: “You are the soul of my soul. I will kiss you one last time.”

And so I did. I kissed that perfect face and those perfect eyes one last time. I touched her pigtails, rubbed my beard on her face again and again, and took in her scent.

In my agony, I praised my Lord. He knew best. He would heal my heartache.

After her burial, I returned to the remnants of our apartment to look for anything I could find to remind me of my wonderful Reem. As I turned over the smashed bricks, our life together was revealed piece by piece. A doll that she would play with every day. She would beg to play outside, but we couldn’t let her—because of the genocide.

She was safe from it now.

Her earring. I attached it to my collar. She would always be with me this way.

Then, with an almost pleasurable pain, I saw it. In the dirty grey landscape of our ruined apartment—the tangerine. With tears streaming down my face, I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

Reem will be eating the fruit of Jannah now.

I wasn’t aware that my last moments with Reem were filmed. People tell me that I inspire thousands of people, but that is not why I did this. I did this because I love my faith, and I love my family.

Our Prophet Muhammad (saw) suffered losses as we do. He lost his grandchild while people were trying to oppress him. They threw his daughter from a camel, and the baby she carried died. He lost an infant son. He lost all of his daughters but one. Yet he carried on—and that is what I will do.

For the Pleasure of Allah:
“Who, when disaster strikes them, say, Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.”
(Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:156)