Content warning: image of a grief-stricken child

In progress: graphite pencil on paper, 9″x12″

It’s so hard to give my heart’s attention to what’s happening in Gaza and Israel: not to intellectualize, avoid, or take any of the other escape routes away from grief and despair, but just to be there with all of the feelings. I thought drawing some of the images that have haunted me might help. Like my brother-in-law John, on whose social media I saw it, I’ve been unable to forget this little girl, who was photographed at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, after Israel bombed the refugee camp where she lived. The photo is by Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times (“As Warnings of Crisis in Gaza Mount, Palestinians Struggle to Find Room for the Dead,” October 12, 2023). Drawing her feels like a prayer. I’m holding her in my heart the whole time, wishing her well, as if the point of the pencil were a hand gently touching her hand, smoothing back her hair. I wish it could be. I hope someone is caring for her that way.

This drawing is far from finished, but I wanted to share what I’m doing.

Expect to see more of these as I try to be fully present with the people whose images are passing before our eyes daily: parents carrying the wrapped bodies of their children, the horrifyingly small packages of body parts awaiting identification at a morgue, people wailing at funerals. I don’t expect to show anything gory, but they are emotionally grueling, so I’ll give content warnings.