Life on Hold: The Deep Scars of a Genocidal War

The genocidal war has done more than just leave a trail of devastation in Tigray; it reached right into every fiber of my being and froze those parts of my life in an endless state of paralysis. I guess one of the most soul-crushing ways it has wounded me is by filling me with a fear of wanting more for myself: an endless fear, the one that would haunt even the most intimate dreams I once nurtured for my future. Well, it seems to me that I am stuck in my life, and I am unable to turn to my life and press the play button.

I think about the countless social events I have avoided-weddings, funerals, events that bring people together, events where life goes on as if nothing drastic is happening. I glance into the mirror, musing whether I can make an effort to look descent every day. Could I have smiled more, socialized more, or been more present in the lives of those around me? Yes, I could have. I could have done all these things. But, alas, I am stuck - doing the motions. It's not just my life that is on hold. My dreams are on hold. My ability to hope is on hold. I am so deeply connected with the suffering of my homeland.

I couldn't. It's as if my spirit is caught in a space of suspended time where, quite literally, it is unable to dream or hope for more. But every time I try to imagine a future, my mind seems to wander back to the suffering of my people. I think of those women and men who took up arms for Tigray to resist the genocide and were left with disabilities, only to be forgotten. I think of the women and girls whose lives were shattered beyond redemption by weaponized rape, their trauma seared into their souls like a scar that will never fade. I think of the weaponized starvation victims, the millions who are being starved into submission, and I can hardly breathe from the heaviness of it all. 

 My heart is not just heavy; it is breaking under the weight of this pain. I can hardly envision myself without a glimpse of them-their lives, too, are in waiting, but theirs is not some pause; it is an agonizing fight for survival in a world that has turned its back on them. My life seems so little compared to that. Every achievement, every step further, seems so void, overshadowed by the question of what my people are suffering through. And another fear, more crippling, is the one that faces their suffering. I will go to Axum this November, a part of me is terrified. What  will it be, to stand on that great ground, a place once famous for its beauty and history, now tarnished by incomprehensible pain?

I fear the conversations I'll have-the stories that will be shared by those who lived through the siege.

How does one look into the eyes of a person who lost everything? How does one speak with a woman who was raped by genociders and then shunned from one's own community? How do you face the mothers who have no food to give their starving children, the babies too weak to cry, who are dying before her eyes because there is nothing left? I'm scared to confront their suffering at its deepest levels, knowing how shattered it might render me in ways I'm not yet prepared for. This is true fear, it has clutched at my heart in its cold grip and caused me to freeze. It's not the fear of witnessing their pain-but of feeling it. Of being overwhelmed by the grief and trauma to such an extent that I will be unable to rise. 

Our lives have been an eternal pause-mine and theirs. A pause of fear, of pain, with the uncertainty of what tomorrow may bring; it felt like, no matter how much time passed, we would never be able to hit play again. We are caught in this cycle of death and pain, of suffering the world has chosen to ignore. We cannot move on until that suffering is acknowledged, until justice is served-until the suffering ends. But for now, we wait. In the darkest pain, in agony, in fear. Waiting for the world to remember us, waiting for an end to this eternal pause that now constitutes a life.