NP editor’s intro: This reflection is written by a refugee who left Gaza

at the end of 2023. It was forwarded to us by a regular contributor who

has known her for around a dozen years.

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My sister spent more than twenty years as an elementary school teacher.

To her students, she was far more than a teacher. She was a friend, a

mentor, and a caring mother who never hesitated to offer guidance,

encouragement, and compassion to her little students. All she ever

wanted was to finish her years of teaching, retire, buy a piece of land,

and build the home she had always dreamed of for herself and her

children—a home with a large garden where she could plant the trees and

flowers she loved. She retired at the end of 2022. Then, in October

2023, the war in Gaza began. Her dreams slipped away, not only the dream

of buying that piece of land, but even the simple dream of living in

peace, free from the constant fear of losing the people she loved.

In May 2025, my sister, her husband, their son, their daughter, and

their three grandchildren were killed when a missile struck their home

in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Gaza. They left behind four grieving

daughters and their youngest son, Mohammed, who had fortunately left

Gaza in April 2024 to continue his university studies in Egypt. The war

gave my sister no chance to say goodbye, and it gave us no chance to say

goodbye to her or to the rest of her family. Eight lives were taken in

an instant. The youngest was only four years old. The oldest were my

sister and her husband.

Now, more than a year after their deaths, I still have not cried for my

sister as deeply as I thought I would. I have not grieved her as fully

as I expected because, somehow, she is still alive to me. I still hear

her voice in my memory. I still find myself expecting my phone to ring

and her name to appear on the screen, or imagining that she will walk

through my front door the way she always did, with her peaceful smile. I

know she is gone, but my heart has not yet learned how to live in a

world where my sister no longer exists. Perhaps that is why my grief

still feels unfinished. Not because I miss her any less, but because a

part of me still waits for her to come back, as though love itself

refuses to believe what happened.

For almost a year now, Mohammed has been coming to my home. I am his

aunt, and I try to make it a place where he can spend time with family,

enjoy the meals he loves, and feel that he still belongs somewhere.

After losing his parents, his brother, his sister, and his nieces, I

want him to know that this is his home too, and that my sons and

daughters are now his brothers and sisters. Mohammed is in his twenties

and has always been a shy young man. Even with close family, it took

time before he felt comfortable enough to simply be himself. What

strikes me most is how every familiar scent of food brings back a memory

of his family. Whenever I prepare a meal he has requested, he often

walks into the kitchen and says, “This smells like sunset during the

war, when my mother used to cook this.” Sometimes he says, “This is the

smell of ten o’clock in the morning, when my mother used to fry potatoes

and falafel for breakfast.” Other times he smiles and says, “This smells

like Friday lunch, when we all gathered after Friday prayers to eat

together.” Or he says, “This is the smell of Eid—the meat, the fried

liver for breakfast, and the aroma that filled our home.” I rarely

respond. I simply smile, carrying a sadness too deep to be expressed in

words.

His memories have made me wonder: Do scents bring the dead back? I am

sure they don’t. But perhaps they bring back the life that was once

shared with them. A familiar scent can unlock an entire world: a mother

standing in her kitchen, a family gathered around the table, the comfort

of an ordinary morning, or the joy of Eid. In a single breath, the

people we have lost seem to draw close again as love has found another

way to remain present. Perhaps that is the gift of scent. It does not

summon the dead. Instead, it preserves them gently within those who

loved them. It keeps their laughter, their habits, and the warmth of the

homes they created alive in our hearts. Every time Mohammed stands at my

kitchen door and tells me what a meal reminds him of, I realize that,

for a brief moment, his family is with him again—not in body, but in

memory, in love, and in the familiar scent of home. Perhaps that is how

love survives loss, through the memories carried in a photograph, in a

familiar voice, or in a certain scent.

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