Gaza
"The last thing I heard was the voice of my children playing, then everything went black. When I opened my eyes I thought I’d gone blind. I couldn’t see anything. I could no longer hear their voices. I checked to see if my wife was alive. Her back and legs were fractured, but she was alive. So I turned on the light of my phone and tried to find the children. My three-year-old daughter Julia was calling to me from beneath the rubble: ‘Baba, Baba, where are you?’ I carried her to a safe place then went back for my second son Kareem. He had severe head trauma. He was in a trance. He kept saying: ‘I’m sorry Mama. Please don’t blame me. I’m sorry.’ When I brought them to the hospital, I refused to let my colleagues deal with their injuries. I dealt with them alone. I did the dressing. I removed the sutures. I wanted them to feel: ‘Our dad is taking care of us, maybe he can still protect us. Maybe he’s still our hero.’ We’re doing OK, I guess. My wife is in a wheelchair now; she can’t walk. So I’m everyone’s caregiver. The children’s wounds are healing slowly. But there is a big problem with their brain. They cannot eat well, cannot talk well. Julia is still waking in the night and screaming. Every time she hears a rocket she starts trembling and crying. I used to tell her: ‘Don’t worry. They’re not targeting us.’ It’s a myth that all of us in Gaza tell our children. But it doesn’t work anymore; she knows that it’s a lie. I'm trying to keep myself together, so they can still see me as their hero. But no, I am not strong now. I'm weak. I’m not eating well. I used to wear the better clothes. I’m not OK. There’s so much fear. Fear that they will never recover. If there’s another strike, even near us, they will lose their mind. You understand me? And I have so much guilt, because I’m the reason we stayed. We had a chance to leave Gaza, one year ago. But I refused. Because I love my people. I love my patients, so I chose to stay. But I regret all of it. My children had the right to live their life. Not this life I chose for them. I'm not okay. I didn't do well with my children. I didn't save them or protect them. We used to be a beautiful family. But now, I don’t know."
Dr. Ahmed Seyam is a surgeon with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). His story is a part of a series I am doing on the Palestinian Staff of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza.
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