By Najwa sheikh Ahmed

In this article I am not writing about a personal experience as I did before, but merely putting myself in the shoes of a young mother diagnosed of breast cancer in Gaza. I am reading here a page in her diary –speaking to it- where she writes the following,

Dear Diary,

Please forgive me for being so hard on your lines; I am in hurry and don’t want to lose any of the ideas rushing into my mind, I wanted to write every thing and anything. I have been diagnosed of breast cancer, my whole world have changed since then, I have to admit that the fact of having this disease did not scared me at all, but what scared me most is being locked in Gaza, unable to have the suitable treatment, unfortunately to be diagnosed of such chronicle diseases in Gaza is a special thing, because you realize that you are in a position where rather time nor medical care are not optional. Since Gaza was siege life and death became key elements in the lives of its people.

My life, my plans have changed completely after this discovery; I had to rethink again of every word, reaction, and every decision that I have to make. Therefore, I have decided with my husband to keep the issue of my illness as our little secret, in order to save the people I love the pain they will feel from seeing me collapsing in front of them, and more importantly I wanted to save their looks of petty, their unrevealed question in every time that we met, whether it is the last time or not?

Dear Diary,
In your lines I will write all my commands to my children, the food recipes they like, the jokes I used to tell them, the stories they wanted to her before they went to sleep, I will also write the plans I made for their future, and will try to draw how I imagine them as young men and women, so please be patient with my rush.

Life in itself in Gaza is a total suffering, for normal healthy people, and a disastrous for people who meant to fall sick. Today when I and my husband went to the ministry of health to try get a referral to be treated in Israel, I was shocked from the number of people trying to do the same, they were dealing with this medical referral as their savior, the healer for all their sickness, I wondered why they have to spend all this time desperately trying to obtain one while they know that it is not only a matter of having this approval, but also is a matter of the soldier at the check point, whether he will allow them the access or keeping them frustratingly and silently waiting for hours to have access to Israeli hospitals while they don’t have that much hours to wait and to try again and again. For all of this I made my mind, I am not going to waste a single second waiting at the doors of the ministry, or at the check point, instead I am going to spend these hours with my children, they deserve it, we will laugh, telling stories, hug each others and have fun, I am not going to waste my time any more.

My dear diary,

I have to end this page with one hope that I will be having the chance to continue and write more to my children, I wanted them to come back to you whenever they need me, or need my love, I wanted you to be their advisor, to be the sound of their mother, to give them the advices when they need, to comfort them when they need and to laugh with them when they laugh, I’ll be writing more of me, of my thoughts , of my soul so my children will remember me for ever.

A sick mother in Gaza

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Najwa Sheikh Ahmed, Nusierat Camp, Gaza Strip. Najwa Sheikh's blog: http://www.najwa.tk/