Holding It Together: A Mother's Diary from the Edge

The air here is thick with tension. It's a strange, suffocating feeling. A heavy stillness that has nothing to do with the weather, even as the skies remain cloudy and rain occasionally falls. My name is Ishita, and I am writing this from my living room in Doha, a place that was supposed to be a temporary chapter in our lives but has become a fortress we cannot leave at will. 

My journey to this part of the world began in 2019, a story of love and new beginnings. I moved here to join my husband, who has been working in Qatar since 2015. We were finally together, building the life we had dreamed of. Soon after, we were blessed with the happy news of my pregnancy. It was a late pregnancy. I was in my mid-40s and we were understandably apprehensive. Having had two previous C-sections, we were on high alert. But miraculously, everything was going smoothly. 

We had a plan: I would travel back to India for the delivery, to be close to family and familiar doctors. Then, the world stopped. COVID-19 struck, borders slammed shut, and our plans were swept away in the global tide. We found ourselves stuck in Doha for nearly two years. 

And in the middle of that uncertainty, our little miracle arrived. My daughter was born here, a tiny, perfect beacon of light in a time of lockdowns and isolation. When she was a year and a half old, we finally made that long-awaited trip to India. Watching her meet her siblings - my older children and my husband's from our previous marriages, was a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. Our family, in all its beautiful, blended complexity, was finally whole. 

Life, however, had more lessons in store. At age three, our bubbly girl was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The world we knew tilted on its axis again. We learned she started social communication late, but to us, she has always been our pride and joy. We found her a wonderful special school here that has worked wonders. She has blossomed into a confident, happy, and fiercely independent 5-year-old. 

We were counting down the days until our next trip home in March. The bags were almost mentally packed. We couldn't wait to see the sparkle in her eyes as she played with her siblings again. 

Then, the worst happened. The spectre of a US-Israel-Iran war became a terrifying reality. 

Our dream of going home has evaporated. Even if the land borders and airspace are partially open, the cost is now astronomical - a luxury we simply cannot afford during a crisis. But the financial strain is only the beginning of this living nightmare. 

Our days no longer begin with the sun, but with the shrill, horrifying sound of alert sirens. We wake up, our hearts already racing, and brace ourselves for the sounds that follow: the heavy thuds of interceptions and the terrifying booms of explosions. We are living in a real-time war zone, watching the news in disbelief as the conflict plays out just beyond our windows. 

But the true devastation is not the fear I feel for myself; it is watching it shatter my daughter's sense of security. 

My brave little girl, who has fought her own battles to communicate and connect with the world, is petrified. The loud, jarring alert message on our phones is a trigger she cannot comprehend. Today, something happened that broke me in a way the explosions never could. 

She came to me, holding her precious tab which is her comfort, her coping mechanism, her window to a world of favourite shows and placed it gently in my hands. With her big, innocent eyes looking up at me, she said, "Mummy, you keep the danger... I don't like it!" 

My heart shattered into a million pieces. In her 5-year-old mind, the source of the scary noise was her tablet. She was trying to give away the "danger" to protect herself.

Now, she spends her days with her tiny hands clamped over her ears, hiding in her toy room. I put her favourite shows on the TV, cranking up the volume in a desperate attempt to drown out the sounds of a war she cannot understand. We are trying to build a bubble of safety in a room, while the world outside is on fire. 

We are not soldiers. We are not politicians. We are just a family, stuck in the middle of a geopolitical storm, trying to protect a little girl from a fear no child should ever have to know. 

This is my account of being stuck not just in a country, but in a nightmare of uncertainty. We don't know when we can go home. We don't know when the next siren will sound. All we know is that right now, in this moment, our entire world consists of keeping a 5-year-old girl calm, happy, and unaware of the "danger" we are all living in. 

And yet, even in my fear, I am haunted by a devastating truth. If watching my little girl hand me her tablet to "keep the danger" makes me feel this helpless, this vulnerable, this utterly broken, then what must it be like for the mothers in Gaza? In Israel? In Iran? In Yemen? In Ukraine? In every conflict-scarred corner of this world? 

I have the privilege of walls, of a TV to drown out the noise, of a toy room for her to hide in. But there are mothers right now, somewhere in the darkness, clutching their children in basements or bomb shelters, or worse - searching for them in rubble. There are children who have known nothing but the sound of explosions their entire young lives. Children who have no tablet to give away, no favourite shows to distract them, no safe room to cover their ears. 

My daughter is terrified, and it is unbearable. But at least she has me to hold her. At least she has a room to hide in. For countless mothers and their children in the direct line of fire, there is nowhere to run, no volume loud enough to drown out the nightmare, and no one to hand the "danger" to. They endure this horror every single day. And that is the most heartbreaking thought of all. 

Amidst the fear and the chaos, I must also take a moment to acknowledge something that weighs heavily on my heart. We are stuck, yes. We are afraid, absolutely. But we are also alive and unharmed. For that, I owe a profound debt of gratitude to the country that has been our home since 2019 - Qatar. 

To the government and the authorities here, thank you. Thank you for the systems that intercept the danger before it reaches us. Thank you for the early warning systems that, however terrifying, give us those precious seconds to brace and protect ourselves. Thank you for the stability and safety that this nation provides, even as the region around us burns. In a sea of uncertainty, knowing that we are under your protection is the one anchor we have. This country took us in, it saw my daughter born, it educated her, and now, it is keeping her safe. For that, we will always be grateful.