Livestreamed

I witnessed a livestreamed genocide, 
From the brick in my hand.
For two years, almost three
The most horrific documentary on demand. 


As I put my daughter to bed, she sleepily whispers 
her four-year-old dreams into my ear, her hot lispy 
spit-speckled breath tickling my neck. 


“When I grow up, I want to be a fairy princess, with 
a wand and wings and a crown. Or a train driver. Or 
a dancer. Or a sciencer.”


She means scientist. Do I correct her? Connection before correction. A parenting blog once 
told me that. I pat her forehead gently, as she drifts off to sleep. 

I scroll my phone.

I see a toddler, must be three, four at most. 
Belly ripped open, charred to a crisp.
My body recoils. 
I am useless, utterly powerless.

All I can do is fucking weep. 

I witnessed a livestreamed genocide
From the brick in my hand.
For two years, almost three
The most horrific documentary on demand. 

My Mum is dying. In the twilight of her Alzheimer’s, she has now reached the 10th year of 
this insidious disease. A recent respiratory infection saw her dance with the darkness. A tightrope tiptoe to the edge of the light. The Head Nurse of the Dementia wing told us to expect ‘the call’ any day or night now.

Have you ever had to explain death to a four-year-old?

“What’s wrong with Nanny, Mummy?”

“Nanny’s very sick. She’s dying. She’s going to die very soon.”

“Die? You need to find a new mummy really quick!”


Have you ever watched someone slowly die? 


A thousand little deaths, with each small decline of the person they once were.

Present absence. 

Absent presence,

Anticipatory grief. 

Have you ever watched an entire population die?

I witnessed a livestreamed genocide

A mother hunches over a tiny body, trapped under rubble. Limbs in plastic bags, carried for miles, by shellshocked siblings. 

Starving skeletons flee as soldiers fire warning shots while hundreds line up at an aid distribution point.

Incomprehensible images. 

Burned into my brain. 

Burned. Burned. Burned.

Charred remains.

Beyond all recognition. 

Flames engulf buildings. 

Silhouettes of children trapped inside. 


Pedantic semantics would have you argue about language; but is it actually a genocide? 


Textbook definition?

Are you fucking serious?


I witnessed a livestreamed genocide
From the brick in my hand
For two years, almost three
While my own mother death-danced
The most horrific documentary on demand. 

My daughter finds a winged bug in the backseat of the car.

She guides it to safety.

Another’s hands might instantly squish. 

Through a crack in her window, it crawls to freedom. 

She whispers an urgent bug-sized wish.

"I hope my bug-friend finds his Mama. I hope he finds his way home.”

I wish this too - for gentle hands and safety.


I witnessed a livestreamed genocide
From the brick in my hand
For two years, almost three
While my own mother death-danced
The most horrific documentary on demand. 


In 2022 the National Institute of Health published a qualitative study on the emotional upheaval and the essence of anticipatory grief in mothers of children with life threatening illnesses. 


Data analysis resulted in the identification of 8 subcategories including shock, irritability, fear of losing, feeling guilty, uncertainty, hopelessness, loneliness and isolation, and mourning without a coffin, all forming the major theme of emotional upheaval.

Shock

Irritability

Fear of losing

Uncertainty

Loneliness

Isolation

Mourning without a coffin.

I wonder what the research would show for children, who are now mothers, mourning the 
anticipatory loss of their own mothers.

I wonder what the research will show for those surviving a genocide, who mourn the anticipatory loss of their entire families? History. Culture. 

Mourning without a coffin. 

Motherless children, childless mothers.

All of us mourning without a coffin.


I witnessed a livestreamed genocide
From the brick in my hand
For two years, almost three
While my own mother death-danced
The most horrific documentary on demand. 


The UN has declared that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Mainstream Australian media buries the story. The Australian Government refuses to ban military exports to Israel. 

From the UN genocide report:

“Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers.”

“Children and pregnant women were killed inside hospitals as they sought treatment or shelter.”

“Israeli forces struck residential blocks designated as safe zones, wiping out whole families.”

“10 children a day lost one, or both legs.”

“Gaza now has ‘the largest cohort of child amputees’ in modern history.”
 
I witnessed a livestreamed genocide

I lament an apology into the night sky.

To the mothers

And fatherless children

To the grandparents 

And the disabled,

I witnessed a livestreamed genocide

To the orphans and the amputees,

The traumatised 

The dead and the displaced 

To the voiceless.

I’m so fucking sorry, with my whole sad and hopeless heart.

I’m 

So

Fucking 

Sorry 

I witnessed a livestreamed genocide 

We marched and we protested

Hopeful to be changemakers

Signed petitions, donated directly - 

Begged our fat, cherry-cheeked politicians 

But in the end, it was all useless.

Hopeless.


I’m 

so 

fucking 

sorry

we

couldn’t 

fucking

stop 

this.  

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