I think quite often about how spoiled I am.
People who know me, who think of me even if it's just for a passing second. They bring me food that I love, things that I enjoy. When I'm craving something, I mention it once and somehow, it appears. My mum, my brother, my friends they remember. And sometimes they surprise me with things I forgot I ever mentioned.
The tiniest things. A keychain in my favourite shade of blue. A snack from weeks ago. A meal at my door. Things so small and so specific that they could only come from one place: someone holding me in their mind and thinking, she would love this and then acting on it.
That is my most abundant blessing in this life. The love people have for me, and the care they pour into me without ever being asked.
And then I think about the children of Gaza.
They had this, too. They had all of it. A mother who knew exactly what they liked to eat. A father who brought home something sweet just because he was thinking of them. Siblings who shared their plate. Friends who saved them the last bite. They had people who held them in their minds and thought: she would love this. He needs this. They must be hungry.
And now they don't.
In the blink of an eye, in the sound of a single explosion it was all gone. No parents. No siblings. No one to remember them. Just silence where a family used to be.
And do you know what I think about the most?
How unbearable it must be to have truly known that love, and then never, ever have it again. Because the memories don't comfort these children. They haunt them. Every time their stomach growls and it growls constantly, because they are starving. It isn't just hunger they feel. It's grief. The emptiness in their stomach is the same shape as the emptiness where their mother used to be.
These children are not just starving for food. They are starving for someone to remember them. To think of them. To bring them something, anything and say: I thought of you. I did this for you. You matter.
Some of them wish they had died with their families. Because at least then, the hunger would be over. At least then, they would not have to carry the weight of surviving in a world where no one is coming home.
That breaks something in me every single time.
We cannot give them back their parents. We cannot bring back their siblings or rebuild the homes where they were once fed and held and loved. We cannot undo what has been done.
But we can do something. We can be their steadiness. We can be the reason a child eats today. We can be the hand that reaches across and says: I thought of you. I don't know your name, but I thought of you, and I acted.
Delivering aid to Gaza’s most vulnerable
Right now, children in Gaza are going to sleep on empty stomachs. Not because there is no food in this world, but because no one has gotten it to them.
They are waking up weak, dizzy, their small bodies turning on themselves because there is nothing left to consume. Mothers who survived are watching their children fade and have nothing to feed them.
This is happening right now, today, as you read this.
Please give. Give what you can this Friday, before the week is over. Give to feed these children. Not just once, but consistently, because starvation doesn't take a day off. You may never know the name of the child whose life your donation saves. But they will feel it. In the warmth of a meal after days without one. In the strength that returns to their tired body. In the small, quiet miracle of not going to sleep hungry for one more night.
We are their abundance now. Let's act like it.
For the children who are still waiting to matter to someone,
Hafsa
