Al-Fukhari, Gaza – For Rawaa Abu Mohsen, it is the life her sister Baraa led that she wants to remember, not how she died on October 30.
Baraa, 31, was killed along with their mother in an Israeli bombing.
“My mother was Baraa’s closest friend,” Rawaa recalls of the bond they shared.
Of course, she added, like any mother and daughter, they argued over petty things, but those things passed quickly.
For Rawaa, “Baraa was my sister, my companion and the partner of my fondest memories. She always asked me to go to her house with my daughter, so we could stand and talk.”
Find your passion
At school, Baraa had struggled with formal education, his sister recalled, preferring to express himself through the countless drawings that covered his textbooks and homework.
Nonetheless, she did well in school, eventually earning the grades needed to enter college and study English.
At first, she had hoped to work for an international organization, but eventually her creativity took hold and led her to start her own business, designing and making the small models that decorate the surface of the cakes.
It’s a talent that Baraa discovered almost by chance.
“She was browsing the Internet” when she came across the idea for the miniatures, Rawaa said. Soon, she “started working on it, even though she didn’t have the tools to make quality products.”
Baraa couldn’t find the clay she needed to make these miniatures, for example, so she had to make it herself from common household ingredients and paint it by hand.
Loving the work she was doing and feeling creatively fulfilled, Baraa soon met a man with whom she fell in love and married.
To her great joy, she was soon pregnant and welcomed her beloved daughter, Tamara, with open arms.
Tamara was Baraa’s world, Rawaa remembers. When they were together, they didn’t need the world, they lived their own lives, separate from everything around them.
Building a future, only to have it stolen
But cracks soon began to appear in Baraa’s marriage and she returned to live with her parents, while exploring ways to expand her business, so that she could support herself and Tamara, as well as to their future.
She managed to secure funding from an NGO and began studying for a degree in project management when the war broke out.
“She was always thinking about how she could be
strong
and continue living her own life,” Rawaa recalls, “She didn’t care about anything except her daughter. »
The day Baraa and her mother were killed is etched in Rawaa’s memory.
“We were talking the night before,” she said. “She told me that Tamara (now seven months old) was afraid of the bombings and cried because of the noise.
“She asked me to bring my own children to the family home because the house and neighborhood were safer than ours. »
Ironically, the family home would be bombed the next day.
“I never thought this would happen to my family,” Rawaa said, adding that she was told everyone was fine when the attack first happened.
She later discovered that her sister and mother were among those seriously injured.
Rawaa was able to visit him, but Baraa’s condition remained unstable.
“She woke up but didn’t eat anything. On the last day, she asked to eat bread, zaatar, oil, olives and pickles,” Rawaa recalls.
The last thing her sister asked for before passing out for the last time was to see her daughter so she could breastfeed her.
Baraa died shortly afterwards, along with his mother.
Her last wish: to hold her child in her arms.