Abubaker Abed@AbubakerAbedW
In early 2025 right after the January ceasefire, I was finally able to bring my dad a soothing cream for his bleeding cracked feet with the help of an amazing doctor and her colleague from the US .
I dreamed of this moment. I begged for it. It was all that I needed to happen. I prayed night in and night out for it.
I travelled to Khan Younis to meet the nurse at Nasser Hospital in order to pick up the cream. When I saw him, I didn’t wait, I immediately asked him to take the medicine out of his backpack. It was the gem I have been searching about since the outset of the genocide — the most priceless treasure.
My dad would now eventually relax and heal from an utterly devastating pain he had endured for over a year and a half at the time. This is what all I thought about. Nothing more. I went back home and handed him the cream with the instructions to use it which prompted him to tell me, “May Allah bless and comfort you in this life. You’re my very dear, Abubaker.”
I was emotionally taken by storm and felt the proudest son in this world. He, for years, poured his heart out for my tranquility and future. He never spared an effort for that. I bore a witness to the days he didn’t get back home from his work until next day or to the nights he didn’t sleep pondering over our rest.
He began applying the cream over his wounded feet which gradually improved by the time. A few days later, his feet became entirely different. The rashes and wounds disappeared . He started walking normally again. The floor of our rooms was no longer smudged with blood. His happiness was unmatched. He never felt that confident, self-satisfied, and calm in a very long time. It was for me and my family everything we desperately wanted to see happen.
And every day, my father would thank Allah and then me and pray for the doctor and nurse who brought him the medicine. We were very concerned that we wouldn’t be able to afford or obtain the medicine again. I told my father,” Insha’Allah, we would bring it again.”
After he used the last drop of that cream in late March, we tried and strived to find out a way to send the cream into Gaza again. Neither the doctor nor the nurse could go into Gaza. The other doctors and medical staffers were incapable of smuggling the cream in due to the intensified restrictions imposed on the foreign international delegations to Gaza.
Our concerns became more pressing than before. The suffering of my father was revived. His blood was getting all over the floor once more. The explosives would echo his piercing shouts. Every two minutes or so, we would check on him. I made every effort. However, I was never successful again.
And up until now, I haven't been able to figure out how to get the medication to Gaza one more time. Since I left, my father has changed. He goes to bed earlier than normal. His anxiety and loneliness have surged. Every day, his sensation of yearning and missing consumes him.
Why do I as thousands of sons in Gaza fail to serve our fathers? Why are we plunged into our guilt and resentment helplessly and pessimistically? Why can’t we talk and be with our fathers as we would crave to?
My father deserves a cream. My father deserves to dream. I deserve to be next to him all the time. I shouldn’t be punished for anything because I have done nothing wrong.
May that cream from that corner of that pharmacy somewhere in the United States brought and sent by the blessed hands of the doctor and the nurse create itself again and find my way at my father’s drawer again.
Survival has no meanings anymore. I was gullible and ignorant to believe it was staying away from the harm’s way. It actually means seeing my father well and having his back until we leave this world together.
The trauma and the guilt are an emotional suicide. I want to live to dream, not dream to live.
