To Live Like a Palestinian

I recently came across an Instagram post about a Palestinian couple who fell in love and got married after losing both their families. They met at a nursing home, found love in one another, and decided to start life again. Because despite everything, they say life is still worth living.

A few months ago, a seamstress near Bethlehem told us that her 16-year-old son had been arrested. She told me her heart was going to burst from the pain. They hadn't expected his detention to last long, but months went by without his return. When I reached out a few weeks into his detention, she told me she was busy planning her other son's wedding. I was mind-blown.

Nobody can tell Palestinians how to grieve or how to live.

We grew up watching devastating scenes of Palestine, hearing news of family members being martyred, and carrying our ancestors' grief wherever we went.  As a Palestinian in the diaspora, I sometimes feel guilty celebrating anything, let alone sharing moments of happiness. After all, it feels like sheer luck that I'm here and they're there.

But through the people I've met and the stories I've heard, I'm reminded of how inspiring Palestinian resilience is. It means holding on to the belief that life must go on. Not because the suffering is any less real, or because they've somehow learned to live with grief and restrictions. But because they refuse to let occupation affect their insistence to live.

I don't mean to romanticize their resilience, that's dangerous. It risks desensitizing ourselves to the tremendous pain Palestinians endure and turning their ability to survive into an expectation that they should be able to withstand anything.

Palestinians are more than their suffering, though, and their stories deserve to be told beyond the devastation. We insist on living. We teach life.

So like Palestinians, remember to celebrate life. Because to be Palestinian means to live life to it's fullest. 

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet