The writer and her groom on their wedding day. Photo: Rawan Alhour

On April 14, 2026, I got married. It was the first time after the war and the genocide that our family had called something a “celebration.”

Not what I had imagined

Before the war, I imagined this day very differently. I was my father’s eldest daughter and he always told me, “You are my first joy. In your success, your marriage, and everything else, you are the beginning of every happiness.” My wedding was one of the days he had been waiting for.

My father was happy at the thought of seeing me as a bride, but he worried about one moment in particular: When my husband would come to our home, and my father would have to walk me out and hand me to him, as our traditions require.

He used to say that daughters’ weddings are difficult for their fathers, and that seeing me leave home would be painful. He knew that one day I would grow up and start a new home, but he was afraid of that moment. He often said he would not be able to handle it easily.

He was afraid he would cry when he handed me to my husband. But he was killed before that day came. On September 30, 2024, my father, Hani Mohammed Hussein, was sitting on the doorstep of our home in Al-Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, with my little sister, Toleen, in his arms, when a missile fired by an Israeli drone struck beside him. The force of the explosion threw Toleen several meters away. She survived, but my father was killed at the scene, in front of all of us. A young neighbor, the only son of his parents, was also killed in the attack.

The writer’s little sister, Toleen (left), was thrown from their father’s arms as the Israeli missile hit him in front of his whole family, including his young son Khaled (right). Photo: Shaimaa Hani Hussein

The day of the wedding

On the morning of my wedding, I went to the hairdresser, trying to live the day like any other bride. I cried there and again when I put on my dress. It was not the dress I had dreamed of before the war. Circumstances had changed and so much of what we once considered simple parts of life had disappeared.

But the dress was not what occupied my mind.

When I looked at myself as a bride, I thought of my father. Where are you, Dad? Your spoiled little girl has become a bride.

When my husband came to my family’s home to take me, the moment my father had always talked about finally arrived. My uncle and my older brother, Hudhaifa, stood beside me. They did what my father was supposed to do and walked me out of my family’s home. I was grateful to have them beside me, but no one can take a father’s place in a moment like that. I started crying.

My husband was waiting for me and my family was around me, but I kept looking toward the place where my father should have been. I wished he were standing at the door, holding my hand and crying because he was saying goodbye to his eldest daughter.

He thought the hardest part of that day would be watching me leave home. But he was not there to see me leave.

I walked out crying so hard that I felt I could barely breathe. I was leaving my family’s home to begin a new life, and at the moment when my father’s hand should have been holding mine, it was not there.

The wedding was held in a simple place covered with nylon sheets, similar to those used for tents. It was not the place I had imagined for my wedding, but the war had changed even the way we celebrate. We decorated with whatever we could find and tried, for a few hours, to create something that looked like the weddings we knew before the war.

But the war did not leave us alone, even that day.

Before the celebration, we feared that there might be nearby bombing. Our family was gathered in one place. Instead of making me feel safe, it also made me afraid for them. I kept thinking that a strike could turn the day we had waited for into a tragedy.

During the celebration, we heard explosions and the sounds of buildings being demolished in eastern Gaza. The sounds frightened everyone while we tried to continue celebrating. The electricity also went out several times. The music stopped, then came back, and we continued. Before the war, I thought my worries on my wedding day would be about my dress, the guests, or the details of the celebration. That day, I wanted only one thing: for the wedding to end safely and for everyone who came to celebrate with me to return safely to their families.

We tried to be happy despite everything. We wanted to put aside, even for a few hours, the years of fear, loss, and death. But we could not completely forget. The sounds of explosions reached us from outside and there were faces I loved missing from the celebration.

I wished my friend Ahood could be with me, but she could not come because of the dangerous roads and difficulty of transportation. Some of my family members were far away in Egypt. Others had been killed during the war and would never attend another celebration with us.

When my family entered the wedding, I cried again. They were trying to smile for me, but I knew them well. I could see the sadness they were hiding and the tears they were holding back so I would not cry more. My father’s absence was not only my pain. They missed him too.

We did not talk about him much. We did not need to. We all knew who was missing from the picture. During the celebration, my brother came to me carrying a gift. He gave it to me and said: “This is from Dad.” I took the gift. My father was gone, but my brother wanted to make sure my wedding day would not pass without me receiving something from him. I looked at it and wished my father were the one holding it. I wished I could hear his voice congratulating me or see his face as he looked at me in the dress he had waited so long to see me wear. But I could not. The gift was there. My father was not.

Learning about grief

After the celebration ended, the guests left and the music stopped. I had married the man I chose to build my life with and a new chapter had begun. But my wedding made me understand that grief does not simply stay in the past.

There are days that come after losing someone we love when we feel that we lose them all over again. My wedding was one of those days. My father had talked about it. He had waited for it. He had imagined himself being there. But he never reached it.

And the wedding was not the only thing he was waiting for. My father was also excited about becoming a grandfather. He was gentle with children. He loved them and they loved him. I knew how happy he would have been to hold my children in his arms. I could imagine him spoiling them and playing with them. I knew they would have loved him. That was part of the future I thought we would have together.

Now, when I have children, I will not be able to place them in my father’s arms. Instead, I will tell them about him. I will tell them that their grandfather was waiting for them before they were even born and that he would have loved them deeply.

Perhaps that is one of the hardest parts of losing my father. His death took him from the days we had already lived together, but it also took him from the days that had not yet come. 

My father never saw his first joy become a bride. He did not hold my hand at the door of our home. He did not hand me to my husband. He did not live through the moment he had always feared would make him cry.

If I could change one thing about that day, I would not ask for a more beautiful dress, a better place, or a wedding like the ones we had before the war. I would ask for only one thing: I wish my father had been there at the door, holding my hand and crying as he gave me to my husband.