My home and family - my dream

im mohammed abu shawish

The Ruins of Dreams… and Carrying Life Amidst Death

My home wasn’t just walls and a roof—it was the beginning of a life my wife and I carefully built together. We put effort into every corner, chose its colors with care, planned where we would place our first child’s crib, and imagined his laughter echoing through the rooms. But now, it’s gone. In a single moment, everything turned to rubble, leaving behind only dust and fragments of memories clinging to the corners of my heart.

That day was anything but ordinary—it was the day they stole everything from me. I stood over the ruins of my home, searching through the wreckage for the remnants of the dreams that the bombs had buried. As I looked around, I saw that my family’s house had also been reduced to ashes. Nothing survived—not the framed pictures on the walls, not the furniture my father spent years gathering, not even the notebooks where I had scribbled my plans for the future.

But the pain didn’t stop at losing my home; it took more from me than I could have ever imagined. I lost my little brother—the child who ran to me every day to tell me about his small adventures. I can no longer hear his laughter, nor hold him in my arms. He was too young to bear such suffering, yet he’s gone… just like my friends, with whom I used to dream, plan for tomorrow, and search for meaning in the midst of destruction. But they left before we could find the answer.

Now, I carry my grief in silence, hiding it in my chest because I don’t want to add to my wife’s pain. How can I tell her that when I smile at her, my heart is crying? How do I explain that when I say, "We’ll be okay," I don’t entirely believe it, but I’m trying to hold on to any glimmer of hope, even if it’s just a mirage?

At night, when only the wind slipping through the tent’s gaps breaks the silence, I hear my wife whisper:

"It will be okay, we’ll be okay… won’t we?"

But I have no answer. I don’t want to lie to her, yet I don’t want to extinguish the hope in her eyes. So, I just hold her hand and squeeze it, as if to say: "We will try… no matter the cost."

Today, after losing everything and finding ourselves living in a tent, awaiting the arrival of our unborn child, we need your support. I don’t know when we’ll return to our home, or if we’ll even have the chance to rebuild what was destroyed. But what I do know is that we are still holding on to hope.

I can’t promise we’ll be okay without help, but I promise that we will fight—for our child, for my brother’s memory, for our lost friends, and for every dream that refuses to die.

We need your financial support to help us rebuild our lives and support our family through this difficult time. Every donation, no matter how small, is a step toward a new beginning for us and for our soon-to-be-born child. In every donation, there is hope. In every share, there is strength.

If you can help, please visit and give whatever you can. Every contribution makes a difference.

From the depths of our hearts, we thank you for standing with us in this unforgettable moment.

mohammed abu shawish