💔 I don't know when I grew up. It feels as though the war stole my childhood before I ever had the chance to live it, leaving me with a heart that has learned to cry far too often.

🕊️ At first, I cried for the friends and relatives who never came back. I kept believing we would meet again, but some goodbyes are forever.

📚 Then I cried for my education. I dreamed of growing up, of becoming someone who could make my family proud. Instead, war stole my classrooms, my books, and the quiet days every child deserves. I studied beneath the sound of warplanes, trying to convince myself that a future still existed.

🏚️ Then we were forced to flee. I left the home where I was born and raised, never realizing that a person could leave an entire lifetime behind. My room stayed there. My books, my little treasures, the window where I used to watch the sky, and every memory that made that house feel like home.

🤍 The hardest part was watching my mother suffer. More than anything, I wished I could take away her pain, but my small hands were too weak to help.

🎓 After surviving a year under genocide, I finished my exams. Like any little girl, I hoped for one small moment of happiness—a simple walk, a piece of candy, a tiny gift that whispered, "You did well. You made it." But my exams ended, and the sorrow did not. Nothing changed.

🇵🇸 I cried for Gaza—for the children forced to grow up too soon, for the homes reduced to rubble, and for the faces that seem to have forgotten what it feels like to smile.

🥀 But I didn't truly understand the weight of tears until hunger became a permanent guest in our home.

🍞 The hardest moment is not when I am hungry. It is when I look at my family and realize I have nothing to give them. Every time mealtime comes and there is no food, it feels as though my heart is apologizing to them.

💭 Hunger doesn't only hurt your body. It makes you feel invisible, forgotten, as if the whole world hears the news but cannot hear the silence of empty stomachs or see the tears that fall quietly to protect what little dignity we have left.

🌍 Sometimes I wonder... does anyone know we are still here? Does anyone think about us as we struggle to survive one more day?

🙏 I am not writing to ask for pity. I am writing because I am trying to keep my family alive. A little girl should be dreaming about tomorrow, not waking up every morning with only one question in her heart:

Will we find something to eat today?

💔 That single question made me grow up before my time, and made my tears far heavier than my years.

🤍 If my story reaches your heart, please don't let it end here. Sharing it, speaking about it, or offering any support could mean the difference between hunger and hope for my family. Every act of kindness matters. 🙏