Candles not Coffins

🎂🎖 Candles and Coffins: A Mother’s Reflection in the Time of War

By Hawraa Ghandour | Founder of Women of the World Whispers

How do you light a birthday candle when the sky outside is lit by fire?

How do you sing for life, while death marches in your neighborhood?

I ask myself this every year now — ever since my daughter Zahraa was born, after 14 long years of longing and tears, of IVF cycles and unanswered prayers. She is my light, my miracle, my reason to hope.

And yet… I live in a place where hope is a fragile thing.

⸻

The Day Joy and Grief Collided

Last year, on Zahraa’s birthday, I decorated her little cake with pink icing and stars. I bought balloons, prepared her favorite song, and wrapped a doll in a ribbon of dreams.

And just hours later, we heard the news: a neighbor’s son had been killed in a bombing. He was only 17.

That day, we cut a cake — and they dug a grave.

We sang a song — while his mother wailed in the dark.

We lit candles — while war snuffed out another young soul.

How can the heart carry so much in one breath?

⸻

The Emotional Violence of War

This is the silent pain that war inflicts — not just on the battlefield, but in our homes, in our hearts, in our memories.

War teaches us how to multitask our emotions:

• To smile with trembling lips.

• To dance with one eye on the news.

• To plan birthdays while preparing for funerals.

It is emotional violence — to have to explain to your child why there are more soldiers than teachers, more sirens than lullabies, more burials than birthdays.

⸻

A Call from One Mother to the World

I no longer want to choose between joy and grief.

I no longer want to fake strength in front of my daughter while I’m breaking inside.

I want to live in a world where birthdays are just birthdays — not moments shadowed by missiles or mourning.

I want every mother to braid her daughter’s hair in peace, to plan a party without fear, to raise her son without the dread of a soldier knocking on her door.

⸻

From My Whisper to Yours

To the world: listen to our contradiction.

To women everywhere: do you feel this too?

Let us gather. Let us share our truths. Let us whisper until the world hears the insanity of raising children in zones of death.

This is why I launched Women of the World Whispers. So that our stories — our pain, our resilience, our love — become the seeds of peace.

⸻

Let candles never again compete with coffins.

Let birthdays never again echo with bombs.

Let our daughters know joy — not just survival.

For Zahraa. For your children.

For the children of Gaza, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon.

For the right to celebrate life — and only life.

⸻

🕊️ #WomenOfTheWorldWhispers

🕊️ #MothersForPeace

🕊️ #EndWarNow

🕊️ #CandlesNotCoffins