Gaza Love Story
Fields of Peace is built on the hearts and voices of extraordinary people committed to creating a more peaceful world for all children. Meet one of the inspiring voices of our movement: Melissa Madenski. A gifted writer, educator, and storyteller, Melissa’s work weaves together themes of love, loss, and resilience, reflecting the depth of the human experience. Learn more about her journey in this thoughtful interview.
Melissa Madenski’s A Gaza Love Story is a reflection on love, resilience, and shared humanity in the face of violence. Her heartfelt words invite us to connect deeply with stories of hope and compassion, reminding us of the power of empathy and friendship in building a more peaceful world.
Gaza Love Story
In the children’s novel, Ferris, the author Kate DiCamillo gives voice to a grandmother who wants to hear a story from her granddaughter, Ferris. Ferris asks what kind of story, and the grandmother answers, “Every story is a love story.”
This is a love story.
Summer of 2020: covid is winding down. The war in Gaza has not yet begun. A teaching friend asked if I would work with a group of students attending a cultural school in Gaza. We would meet over zoom, and talk about their work and write together. They were learning to write everything from journalism to essays to fiction to poetry. They all spoke fluent English as a second and sometimes third language. I said, “Yes.”
The childrens’ teacher emailed many pictures of Gaza, wrote of the things she loved – flowers, the sea, coffee in the morning…and we became long-distance friends. We found many things in common. The teacher shared with me that most of the children I would soon meet had faced early losses of family members in wars. Internet connections were spotty as was electricity. Children rang in from kitchens and living rooms. Some disappeared, then connected back in. I could hear pots being moved, and saw a parent or two in the background. In one square on my computer, a dog rested his head on a child’s knee.
We had four hours together over a few weeks that fall. Students ranged in age from 11 to maybe 15. All spoke English fluently. Like many students I’d had as a teacher in the US, children were excited to ask questions and answer them. They told me what kind of writing or art they did; I answered their questions about my own work. Some were shy, some more bold as are students in this country. I brought the poet Mahmoud Darwish’s poem about needing to plant a garden quickly because you never know when you will have to unexpectedly move. Maybe the best description, now, in 2024 just tipping into 2025, is how I remember them as beautiful, if we have to use a label, as children learning about their connections to their own culture and open to hearing about the culture of others. I asked them to write about a time they had felt safe – to describe the smells, sounds, sights of place so we could “see it.” If they couldn’t locate a place, I invited them to think of writing or the visual arts as a place where they felt safe.
We wrote together and shared our writing. There was the boy with the easy smile who wrote about his mother. He set the scene on the beach, maybe 10 years before – when he was five-years-old. He and his mother waded into the water at the edge of the sea. I could “see” him holding her hand as they walked into the Mediterranean. He wrote about the safety of his mother, how she always made him feel happy, how beautiful she was on that day. He wrote about how she twirled him around on the sand. He wrote about the sounds and smells of the sea, of their laughter. We could all see and, even, hear it. Though his interest was journalism, he said, “I liked this piece.” It reminded him of a day where he had no worries. This is a love story for this boy, this beautiful boy who wanted the same things most humans want - safety, love, acceptance, dignity.
I remember these children, their faces lit with curiosity about writing and art. We were a community of writers in those four hours together under the same sky stretched over all living things of this earth. I have a five-year-old granddaughter who is also a love story as is this young man who I think of every day along with his teacher, my friend. For each child killed in Gaza, we lose another love story. For every grieving mother, regardless of country, for everyone who is a child’s safety – parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandparents, fathers - we recognize what that loss means.
© Melissa Madenski 2024
