My Dear Mothers of Gaza,

I sit three thousand miles away from you and yet your wails, your laments, your cries pierce my soul like an arrow. I feel helpless as I see your loved ones being dug out of the sprawling rubble — bones, bereft dolls, torn masonry — and brought back in black polybags and white shrouds.

Solace becomes a meaningless word, patience a useless virtue. And yet, it is still a solace to see a tiny body neatly wrapped in a white shroud than a careless mass of bones in a polybag. At least the shroud contains a human shape, dead though it is.

Since October, Israeli occupiers have killed many thousands of your flesh and blood. To say that I feel sorry for your loss would be demeaning the pain you have felt and will stay with you for the rest of your life.

For many of you time stopped when you saw that one particular dead body, the love of your life snuffed out. But the world went spinning on after its own fashion. That is the way of our world. Yes, that’s how this world is. The share market went up and mutual funds gained. More weapons of war exchanged hands across continents, the never-fading fragrance of capital remained our pervasive truth. I say this to tell you that your loss didn’t matter to this world simply because there was so much more to plunder in the name of war and peace. There were so many other kids to be killed, so many new patches of land to be occupied.

But that’s not the whole truth because millions among us were shaking in anger at the murderous rages pursuing you. We felt the ache you feel when you are separated from your child. It’s like ripping away skin from body. I remember that nervous warmth of my little daughter’s hand as she tightly held mine while I dropped her to school for the very first time. To know that the same tiny fingers will never warm your hand ever again, is not heartbreak, it’s the end of your world. I cannot even fathom such loss. Seeing those ragged dolls and tiny shoes atop the rubble of Gaza’s obliterated homes shames us all. Ironically it reminds me of the heap of shoes outside those notorious gas chambers in concentration camps of Nazi Germany.

My beloved Ommi, the grief that surrounds you and holds your thoughts and life are the only weapons of your reawakening, of your coming back to life in whatever ways you will. Trees that lose their leaves to harsh winters come back to life in spring. Of course, that’s a poor analogy and probably that’s the difference between humans and trees. But believe me, this irreparable loss of yours, of body and of soul, is a sort of truce with life. It’s this hope of a future which should propel you to live. There is nothing else to lose. There shall be moments when you’ll find it impossible to live, more so in the shadow of rulers and Molochs who are the harbingers of this destruction. But you have to live. You have to live to tell us the stories of Gaza. You have to live to spread the smell of bread you once baked at home. You have to live because when humans live in pain, they cease to be humans. They become saints. You are the saints of this world who have been through the ultimate sacrifice.

Let me tell you what Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the proponent of stages of grief and of bereavement, had once written. She wrote, people are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. I know you all have swallowed the sun. You are now the light of this dark world. And to shine upon us, you shall have to live.

The murders of your children in their secure homes have left all of us sad, bewildered and angry. When we read history, we were convinced that mass murders and genocides are things of our past. We were wrong. With every bomb dropped on your homes, with every bullet pumped in your chest and with every torture endured by your bodies, the genocidaire became real and hope was buried alive. But to keep hope alive is what redemption means. To keep hope alive is the biggest defeat we can inflict on those who planned despair for you. Hope is the surest antidote to despair.

There are two options for you, for us — to be happy or to be peaceful. Happiness is a dream and I dare not ask you to dream because I understand that every time you’ll shut your eyes, those little bodies will start playing hopscotch and football or may be throw a tantrum as they did the other day in the toy shop. The cruelty of Israel’s death and destruction is a blot on the face of human civilization. They can kill all of humanity in Gaza but they can’t kill you — the indomitable mothers of Gaza. I send my embraces Ommi. We all are with you. We cannot replace what you lost but we can share your sorrow and earnestly hope that it brings some peace to your broken heart and your wounded soul.