Dear Ms. Ward,

Your words have reached me, an objectively insignificant person, across the world.

Unlike you, I was a very quiet nine-year-old. I would have looked up to you as my peer. I didn’t develop the courage to use my voice until much later in life. But I understand that for you, it’s more than just strength in vulnerability, when your voice is all you have.

You are a very inspiring nine-year-old. I look up to you now, even.

Your mother Israa, and your father Ahmed, are about the age of myself and my husband, today. Like you and your little brother Ziad, I too, have siblings I wish health and happiness for. I have no children, and can barely imagine raising any where I am, let alone, where you are.

My mother is an immigrant. She made sacrifices so that I could grow and work in a country, which promised us any opportunity we could imagine — but at a cost I did not anticipate.

My country uses my tax dollars for things I don’t agree with. I vote and participate in campaigns against them, to no end. It makes me so angry. Yet, I take advantage of the choices I have the privilege to make, bound to the belief that I can make some positive difference in the world from this place, while simultaneously functioning as a cog within a system of global oppression. I get used to the excuses.

It’s easier to claim “I’m not educated enough to speak on world affairs”, despite having the freedom to learn, and the access to abundant resources for information.

It’s easier to be quiet. But you’ve reminded me that my silence is a privilege, protected by those seeking to harm you. You’ve reminded me that my complacency is violent.

It’s easier to prioritize the desire to “protect my own peace and live in gratitude, in order to save my energy, to do good when the time comes”, but the time is now, and I’d rue the day I look back from the future, knowing, I could have made different choices.

Meanwhile, you do not have any easy choice. And I am not, in any way, more deserving than you. You deserve safety. You deserve joy. You deserve to continue your education. You deserve the opportunities I was born into, across the world — the opportunities, I take for granted.

Despite these opportunities, I admit, I was a very fearful nine-year-old. I was afraid of the dark, of my own imagination at times, and sometimes even, of God. I couldn’t understand why cries of suffering, from others or from myself, were often met with silence. And yet, I grew comfortable in that silence at times.

It’s easier to decide that my own trauma, and that the systemic issues within my own country, are enough to deal with. Yet within my given circumstances, I’ve had the privilege to persevere, to heal, to learn, to love, and even to adopt new philosophies, regarding the meaning of it all. Why me, and not you?

All of a sudden, I’m about to turn thirty-years-old, and I realize, my life sometimes does feel simple. And it’s not fair that your experience of the same life - the same time period, the same world, and the same humanity — transcends horror I could never even imagine, not when I was nine-years-old, and not now.

You are a very brave nine-year-old. But you shouldn’t have to be.

I am asking those I am now able to reach, to help take any part of your burden. I hope you, Israa, Ahmed, and Ziad, as well as all the other families like yours, can receive at least a fragment of the peace often hoarded in other parts of the world.

I was once a very quiet nine-year-old. But you, a very brave nine-year-old, have inspired me to use my voice, and to do what I can to amplify yours.

To those reading this, if you have any easy choices today; what to eat, where to go, what clothes to buy, or any other fleeting decision, please consider giving the value of at least one, to Ward Harara. She deserves some easy choices in life, too.

I have disabled the paywall for this page so maximum potential proceeds can go directly to the Harara family. To learn more and to donate, click here. Thank you.