What Was and What Will Be

2nd entry - Motherhood & Pregnancy in Wartime Series

November 6 2024

Today is Imad’s 3rd birthday. I always thought we’d celebrate at home, like we always did. In the place he took his first steps, said his first words, spat out the first bites of mashed carrot. Now we’re somewhere else, and each day feels like pulling him a little further away from the life he knew. 

I found him shoving his favorite stuffed animal, Doggy, and a few toy dinosaurs into a shoebox, getting more and more frustrated because it wouldn’t shut. I asked him what he was doing and if he needed any help. He looked up briefly and said, “I’m packing them to take them to Beirut, mama.”

He said it so easily, like we’d leave tomorrow and slip right back into our old life as if nothing had changed. He thinks this is temporary, that soon we’ll be back in the place he understands. But I know it isn’t. I know that even if we do go back, it won’t be the same.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing the words out gently, “We’re not going back right now, baby. When we do, you can pack them.” But he barely seemed to hear me. He kept pressing down on the box, his small hands determined, his need to return stronger than my words.

Then there’s his brother, the child still growing inside me, safe in the world I can still control. He doesn’t know there was ever a home to lose. For him, the world will start fresh. This place we’ve come to will be his beginning. He won’t know the difference, won’t feel the ache of absence the way Imad does. One holds tight to what’s already changed, while the other waits to enter a world he’s never seen. And then there’s me, trying to navigate the space between both.

Later that day, we were in the backseat of a cab, Imad wedged between us, as Ali watched a video of an Israeli strike on Lebanon. I wanted to ask questions - where? how bad is it? how many injured? how many dead? - but stayed quiet instead, not wanting to discuss it with Imad around. But he had other ideas.

“Is it broken, mama?” I guess he got a glimpse of the wreckage on screen.
“Yes, yes it is,” I replied, hoping that would be enough.
“But why?” he asked, in that persistent tone I’ve come to know so well.

I paused, my mind going blank. How do you explain this to a three-year-old? I’d gotten pretty good at navigating his “but why” questions - why the sky was blue, why he couldn’t eat candy for breakfast, why he had toes. But this? This was different. How could I explain why a genocidal, maniacal, evil, colonial entity was raining destruction on our home, killing people we knew, tearing apart places he loved? I couldn’t.

“We’ll fix it. It’ll get better,” is all I could muster.

That’s what I repeated to myself, anyway.