Mats Svensson: For Fatima in Gaza

The Pain in Her Ear and Her Mother’s Sad Eyes Always Remain

By MATS SVENSSON

It is 48 years ago since I last felt the pain. Woke up then and woke up now in the middle of the night. Had just got my own room. When the pain came I went in to mom and dad and lay down between them. My mother woke up while my father continued sleeping as usual.

I was suffering from an ordinary children’s disease, an ear infection. Most people get it at some point during their childhood. All my four siblings at some point felt the burning pain. I often felt it. It began with a slight aching pain, the ear swelling up, the pain occupying half my head and forcing its way to my palate. Despite my pain my mother was calm. She gave me an aspirin. I cried intensively, feeling incredibly sorry for myself. But my mother calmed me and promised that I would soon feel better. “Tomorrow we will go to the nurse and then the pain will go away,” said mother. I was calmed and soon feel asleep against my mother’s shoulder, seven years old.

[Read the article]

“Gaza”, © Golrokh Nafisi, Artist’s website
The drawing is a contribution to the Free Gaza Art Festival

Related:
20 JANUARY 2009: IOF gunboats shell Gaza coasts