I am knitting a tiny, tiny jumper for a newborn baby, in a bright shade of blue. It is so small, and so soft. To fit chest 41 cm, the pattern says. I move the slim needles carefully, pulling taut the yarn, and I can’t stop thinking about newborn babies in Gaza, who will not be tucked into cots or taken home from the hospital to a pristine nursery, who will be swaddled into only whatever scarce softness is on offer.
I am writing this because I keep having conversations with friends with incredulity about whether we are in a parallel universe, about how it feels to see atrocities calmly, constantly, relayed on the news – and no change, no consequence. Because of how it feels to hold this tiny blue jumper in my hands in the safety of my home whilst remembering the bodies of premature babies left to rot in the incubators of a destroyed hospital, how the world shrugged and did nothing, the levels of dehumanisation that requires. Because of the news earlier this week of the terrible death of six-year-old Hind Rajab, her unimaginable final hours. I am writing this because as I go about my silly, puny little daily tasks, there is a genocide happening, and I don’t want to forget this, ever. I don’t want to look away.
But I don’t just want to invoke the deaths of children. I think about the people never given a chance to grow from a child, or act like a child, or have a child. I think about people my age with families, with futures, with lives and friends, all gone.
The jumper, let me emphasise one more time, is so tiny. The clothing of newborns emphasises the incredible fragility of our bodies, the miraculousness of the human form. I used to find this moving, and now I find it terrifying. How is possible that any of us grew from something so small, so breakable, into ourselves?
The wool is a cheerful cobalt. It’s called Soldier Blue.
Ceasefire now.
💙
❤️