“O Allah, deal with those who oppressed us. O Allah, deal with those who destroyed our homes. O Allah, show the oppressors the wonders of Your power, for they cannot escape You…

Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs. This is the condition of our tents. We ask Allah to be gentle with us and have mercy on us. O Allah, Ameen.”

How old is this letter that started our story, Hassan? A letter you wrote while you were behind the bars of solitary confinement in Ohli Kedar Prison.

Today, we begin our seventeenth year, and I still return to those words as though I were reading them for the first time. You wrote to me, “I have dedicated myself to you,” and you promised me that you would keep your vow of loyalty. They were not merely words on paper, but a promise between two hearts that decided to remain together, no matter how great the distances or how long the absence.

Sixteen years… We lived them with patience, clinging to certainty, and carrying hope as though it were our only window toward the day that would bring us together. How often we dreamed of that reunion, and how often we imagined the moment when we would no longer need a letter to express what was in our hearts.

And today, the anniversary returns, while you are once again in solitary confinement, but with more intense pain, harsher circumstances, and news that breaks the heart and weighs heavily on the soul. How much it hurts me that our anniversary comes burdened with all this pain, and that I find you once again behind bars, when all we ever wished for was for you to be near me.

Hassan, the years have not exhausted me from waiting for you, nor has your absence changed my love for you. I remain committed to that promise and to the dream that began with a letter and grew in my heart year after year.

Sixteen years… And I still dedicate my heart to you, and I still wait for the day when we will put away the letters of waiting and finally meet.

May we be well with each passing year, and may you, my beloved, whom distances have not defeated in my heart, be well with each passing year… Until Allah decrees that we meet. ❤️

4/11/2010

4/11/2026