A Survival Story Not Found in the Training Curriculum
Since childhood, I have carried a dream within my ribs — so vast it barely fits inside my body, seeping out through my pores and breath… I dream of love, justice, and a conscious, noble sense of belonging. I grew up defending the oppressed — especially women, girls, and children — with all my strength.
I witnessed the revolution from its early days… I was summoned to numerous security branches… I went out into the squares of dignity and chanted — chanted like never before, despite doctors warning me not to raise my voice after the removal of a cancerous thyroid just one week before the squares of As‑Suwayda awoke… And I was determined to remove the cancer of Syria, no matter the cost.
Assad fell. The moment of his fall was the sweetest in my life. Syrians embraced one another, and we celebrated together. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. But that joy did not last long.
Four months after Assad’s fall, violent bloody events erupted in the coastal region — a slap in our faces. We were afraid… angry… outraged… Then came the justifications: remnants of the regime, accumulated popular anger, and assurances that the security bodies were innocent of the bloodshed. We were like someone sitting on embers — afraid to deny, afraid to believe.
We hold in our hands a thread of light. We want to weave it with other threads, hoping to gather the sun above our homeland.
— Rima
July 2025 came.
I was outside the governorate, attending a training on civil peace and social cohesion, with women from all governorates. We came from As‑Suwayda carrying our identity in our hearts, in our facial features, in our warm manners as our mothers raised us… Holding in our hands a thread of light, wanting to weave it with others, hoping to gather the sun above our homeland. The first day ended with laughter, love, and joy.
Then came the next day — July 13, 2025 — when my town was subjected to a widespread attack. I had heard news of events affecting my family, their homes, their land. And I was alone, far away, trying to build "social cohesion," while my little daughter, my beloved husband, my family, my in‑laws — who are like my own family — my relatives, all my relatives were there! Under bombardment, under screams.
My skin began to crack. My soul slipped out from under my fingernails. I had not said goodbye to them properly… How could I not have smelled their scent as I should?
They sent me videos of my little girl playing in dark rooms — to keep innocence from any harm. I could not watch them. I tried, but could not.
The world spins around me when I hear her voice. My body twists, nausea and fear devour its cells. I had bought her the toys she asked me for before I traveled — to hug them in her place. Could it be that I would never hug her again? Could it be that I would return to As‑Suwayda and find no one to welcome me?
My sobs tried to tear my soul out to reach them. I prayed for them at times, and at other times I cried for help and screamed. I buried my head in the pillow, phone in hand, jumping between news. I was afraid of the photos of corpses and their faces… Searching for my loved ones among them, then quickly fleeing to another piece of news. The rattle of my soul screamed — but only I could hear it. It deafened me with its intensity.
Around me, people ate, drank, laughed, and talked, while I drowned in my darkness alone. Tables were laid before us, while my family and my daughter had barely enough to survive. The sight of food provoked me, hurt me, burned me. I refused to participate in silence, without anyone noticing that there was someone in pain because she ate while her child could not.
But my heart was not as strong as my mind. That outward steadiness broke from within. I returned home knowing that what is said in trainings does not resemble what happens in a moment of breaking. Only there — at the border of fear and loss — does a human being become stripped of everything, and discover that the distance between words and life can be a whole lifetime, and that what ultimately remains is not the idea, but the ability to survive despite everything unbearable.
