She was unconscious on the ground and she was snoring. So were the words of two of my daughter’s friends when they woke me up at 1 a m on May 12, 2020. Living deep in a wilderness Moab canyon with no reception, they had driven the cliff hanging hairpin turn gauntlet to deliver to me the latest update on the life of my daughter. A party of many friends gathering for the first time since the pandemic had ended with KIma being found unconscious on the ground., snoring. No one realized that snoring indicated a traumatic brain injury, which was indeed the case. My beautiful , wise, fun, and adventure loving daughter had collided with a fate that threatened to take her from all of us. The ER doctor that first saw her in the tiny Moab, Utah hospital knelt by my car just after the life flight took off and answered the question of whether she would live with…she may not. The driving wheel gripping, dark, dark, dark, push, push, just drive. The 100 mile journey to in the dark a m hours to the Colorado hospital is a memory of the fear of walking into the complete unknown of my girl’s life or death. The most terrifying moment of the ordeal was entering the hospital, looking straight at the security personnel and asking, is she alive? The answer of yes nearly took me to my knees. A no would have.
A touch of drama? Yes. Did she live? Yes. Is she OK? Yes. For months. I watched her go from comatose, to slowly answering questions about who she was and where she was, to taking her first few shaky steps, to walking out of the ICU to rehab and on to her brilliant, miraculous, and rare recovery. For weeks, I walked a narrow line of hope with disaster on the other side. My two brave sons walked it with me as they came and stayed, taking shifts to be sure someone always was with her. A few of her friends from Moab camped out in a van in the parking lot for weeks as to also be able to take shifts. They rubbed her feet and told her they loved her. We spoon fed her fat bombs and made sure she drank loads of protein shakes.
Many people sent love to us. Some of my Muslim friends in Palestine were calling to Allah for her during their daily prayers. A group of women from the Hooper Ridge rural Southeastern Ohio neighborhood where Kima grew up sent love on their morning walks together. I was saying for a while that all the love was a critical part of her almost strange recovery. But recently, a young woman from this same neighborhood also had an ATV accident. And died. And a few months before, the college roommate of one of the other walkers’ son died of head trauma. His family was flying in from Japan, and did not make it to his side. Those kids had prayers. Those parents were taken to their knees.
After my girl’s recovery I had to go away to be on my own for the winter. I had to recover from my own sense of trauma. I was afforded the luxury of staying in my older brother’s house in Sedona, AZ. Sedona is a most breathtakingly beautiful place.
May 2021 Israel bombed Gaza, again. Throughout the week, Palestinian friends in Gaza sent me videos of bombings that they were able to record on their telephones. These videos are complete with their terrified panting as they filmed explosions a few streets away, their panting giving way to screams as more explosions rocked their house. One video descended into dark falling rubble, then ended. My friends all lived. However, at least 67 youth did not. Over 200 human beings murdered so far by these rockets sent into Gaza in just this past war. I am keenly aware that Israel is claiming self defense after Hamas sent hundreds of rockets over the wall that separates Palestinian Gaza from Israel. I am also keenly aware that Palestinians in Jerusalem are being ripped from their homes, beaten by IDF, tear gassed, shot at with rubber bullets, enduring the shattering sound bombs thrown in their midst as they resist with no viable means of self defense. The worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque had no means of self defense as the holy site was raided the final days of Ramadan. Photos of Muslims staying the course of prayer surrounded in tear gas while the Israeli military looks on are astounding. The Hamas rockets, which were mostly caught and detonated in the sky by the Iron Dome, were the only statement of self defense possible to Palestine. If Israelis have the right to self defense, do Palestinians?? Israel calls this ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem “potential evictions.” Who exactly are they kidding? Lots of people, including Joe Biden. Or on a much darker note, perhaps our leaders are not fooled at all.
After Kima’s accident and subsequent miraculous recovery, I lay in bed at night thinking about Syrian mothers and fathers clinging to their children as they were gripping each other in inflatable boats overflowing with fleeing refugees. I thought about Yemeni mothers and fathers watching their babies starve, while grocery stores with food on the shelves were not too far away. Now I am thinking about Gazan mothers and fathers digging their children out of the rubble of an Israeli multi billion dollar a year self defense budget. None of these parents get to go to some serene destination to recover. No. They will endure. They will endure losses we cannot imagine. They will fall off the line into disaster. The survivors will pass on their trauma to yet another generation. We will go on with our lives, many of us, shaking our heads, stating the complications of political situations, and then decide what to make for dinner. Politics are complicated after all. Death is not. What is the point of confusing the two? Are all of these deaths the result of politics? I still have a hard time comprehending the politics of war. Keep your politics where they belong, wherever that is? Stop using the murder of countless lives as collateral damage to your merciless and privileged decision making, your “politics” masquerading as religion.
I am semitic. My father was Palestinian born and Nakba torn. Somewhere in my maternal lineage is a Sarah Robinson, a Jewish Brit. I am not sure she makes me semitic. My father makes me semitic. If Palestine had never been invaded by Arabs in the 7th century, his native language would have been Aramaic, as Jesus spoke. Although Palestinians call themselves Arab, I feel this is more the nature of the language than the people. Entering the West Bank of Palestine opens one to a pulchritudinous culture that can be addictive to a western bred soul. One can be awakened by the generosity of strangers in the street, smiling at you and perhaps asking you in for coffee if the conversation lasts even but a few minutes. Of course, one must overlook the trash in the streets of Qalandia, sometimes burning tires, insanely trafficked no rules apply roads, and the ever present Israeli wall, complete with sniper towers, surveillance cameras, and razor wire. I travelled through Qalandia refugee camp into Ramallah, moving deeper still into the small villages that were born among the holy landscapes. In spite of the invasive , soldier ridden, wall building, olive tree stealing and burning Zionist settlements that empty their untreated waste into Palestinian villagers’ backyards, ( Do I have attitude? Hmm, is telling a first hand witnessing true experiences attitude? ) the gorgeous cultural invitation of hospitality continues on. I have yet to be ‘granted permission’ to visit Gaza. So much in the media diverts from the beauteous realm of the West Bank. From Palestine. It is from here that I resonate. Being here where I feel home. I have for years called my daughter my Palestinian Princess. And so she still is. I still get to call her that. She is still with me as so many Princes and Princesses of Palestine have disappeared under their bombed or bulldozed homes while their parents are left holding the immortal memory of their royalty.
Love doesn’t always supersede certain failings, human and otherwise. We are all familiar with this in our daily lives, via loss of friendships, family feuding, divorce, and so on. We are easily led to love, but without any fortitude of faith, personal grounding, self love, or commitment, the reality of the full spectrum of the love affair can diminish or be destroyed completely. Sometimes it is the safest and best route to abandon a dangerous or destructive love. Sometimes a relationship ends but the love carries forth. Sometimes, the sticking with it is the road to….damn, what is the word? Fulfillment? Enlightenment? Illumination…I like this one. Because in this Palestinian love affair, I have stayed. I have stayed through being taken advantage of, being naive and handing too much money to the wrong person, being misrepresented, saying the wrong things, and feeling like I didn’t know anything. I stayed through realizing that Palestinians in Palestine have their own daily dramas to live through, and sometimes I am not a welcome part of some of their lives . In simple terms, the experience of being the exotic traveler coming back only lasts for so long. The grit of the daily life sinks in. The reality of how many parents still must fear for their children every day for simply going to school, going on a picnic, or foraging for wild plants is harsh. But my illumination to the steadfast beauty of a culture that, enduring a cruel and systematically oppressive military occupation, is even more staggeringly and bountifully breathtaking than it was in the beginning.
“The grit of daily life”….in Palestine, this is something to reckon with. The word normalization has become cliche. Watching two Israeli soldiers pointing their loaded weapons at two Palestinian boys running in a field, and then keeping on driving and talking with the taxi driver is not normal. It is survival. Stopping the taxi and interfering could mean death for the taxi driver. It would change nothing for the boys. Those boys might have lived. They may have disappeared. I don’t know what happened. You certainly will not read about it in the Jerusalem Post. The soldiers certainly lived, and not until much later or not at all, might they end up like the 27 year old ex IDF woman I met in Jerusalem. Without looking at me she told me, “They brainwash us our entire lives. When we are 18 years old we go into the military. And later, we cannot live with ourselves for what we’ve done.” Her illumination differs from mine.
While in the ICU with Kima, one of her night nurses, Teri, paid particular attention to her. She made sure to give Kima the protein drinks we had brought for her. I loved Teri for her care and compassion. One night I asked her a bit about herself as I was thanking her for her kindness. She then told me that she had lost her son a few years ago in a traffic accident. He had been riding shotgun while his girlfriend drove. She reached for something and the vehicle swerved and flipped, killing him. The driver had no injuries. I stared at this nurse, close to my age, as she stood there, both of us tearing up. I said, “You care so much for my daughter when you lost your son.” “Yes” she replied. “It is healing for me to care for her”. In these small monumental moments, we recognize hope for humanity.
My oldest son and his wife are expecting a baby any minute. I have explained to them that even as much as they are joyfully in love with one another, the love of their baby will surpass the depth of love they have ever dreamed possible. They are carrying on my parents, her parents, backward and forward onward. Every child born from rubble or affluence holds a thread, a possibility that love overrides the brutality of evil that has sought to darken humanity from time immemorial. Of course, the care of what they are taught is what begins the weave of the thread.
Baby ………….Beardo Weaver Lill Bister Dahlstrom Amash , you will soon appear into the light and night of human existence. May you be able to stand in who you are grounded, kind, charismatic,( you will be ) joyful, and free. That your known blood of English, Swiss, German, Swedish, Dutch, Palestinian, and every other drop of ancestry you carry also carries you as you intertwine with this life. Every parent in every war shattered place loves the child/children they have lost as much as I love my own, as much as my children will love their children, and as much as you love or will love yours. I am blessed to have a daughter alive when others came to the end of the line with their loved ones. I pray for a just world that ceases its dialogue of imposed racism and ethnic divisiveness. Baby Amash has a cousin somewhere in Palestine. May they dance wildly together one day.