[Update on Sept 17, 2025]
Today I deleted all of my past posts. My friend Mohammed Abu Jarad and his dear older brother Qusay were martyred in Khan Younis, Gaza, Palestine earlier this summer. I had felt it coming. He had a vision of his death about eight months prior and told me. We agreed that it was likely that he could be martyred and that he should start living his life instead of wallowing in his resentment for the world. I sent him extra money to buy expensive sweets. He finally bought himself some sweets and shared it with his siblings last fall. He tried to spend time with people and even celebrated an engagement for his little sister. He didn’t make it. His vision was entirely accurate. He died in an explosion followed by shelling. I saw his body in a video that many people sent my way.
Excerpt from a diary comic for Mohammed.
I spent the last two years fundraising for many starving families in Gaza. By March 2024 we were able to evacuate two families and by April we had evacuated one more. We were helping to pay rent for three families in Egypt and I gave 100% of whatever money I had in my accounts. I took on art jobs and donated all of the money to my friends in Gaza. I did public speaking at three local universities, wrote to my local newspaper, held a five week workshop on resistance. I did not have a naive perspective regarding fundraising. I knew how hard it was, how nearly impossible it would be to help every person that I had met, but I had so much hope. That is what we must have— a drive to aim as high as we possibly can knowing that it could statistically yield the best results for these very real human beings stuck in a situation that our country and the rest of the West manufactured for them.
Then the crossing into Egypt closed and only opened a few times for special hospital cases and food from the markets in Egypt. The situation in Gaza quickly worsened. To deal with the mounting pressures and constant changes, I decided to focus on three families. For the last 12 months I had focused on just Mohammed’s family, his best friend Yasser’s family, and his close friend Bashar’s family. My partner gave all of her money to Yasser so that he could get on a list for evacuation into Egypt. He was told in January that he might be able to leave. But it is nearly November and he is still trapped in the siege.
The stress took a huge toll on my mind and body. I think real trauma occurred in my brain and I wasn’t even in Gaza. Just being close to everyone and hearing their suffering daily, feeling panicked and overworked for many months back to back immediately after I had just dealt with a 3-year court battle that also involved abuse. I feel completely changed. All my disability traits have worsened, aggravated. And my faith has strengthened, expanded beyond the bounds of my heart. I don’t feel like a human. I feel like an alien with wisdom that I must spread on this foreign planet filled with sleeping, pacified people. I have to check myself daily to remember how many amazing, honest, caring people there are in this world who truly are working towards collective liberation. I know that I am part of that legacy as are all the students I’ve taught and community peers who also make art in response to these experiences. Despite the stress I opened another fundraising account for Mohammed’s family and was able to raise an additional $10k with the help of his little sister Farah. May she live the life he wanted, a life full of travel and fun and new friends.
Excerpt from another comic for Mohammed.
Nothing is the same for me anymore. And I expected it, I’d been expecting it since I was a child. I had visions as a young person of this Empire falling. I had visions of violence and impending doom around the world that would come back to bite us like an ouroboros snake. The downfall of colonialism has arrived. From now until about 2030 we will see the dismantling of Empire around the world. It will happen in spurts of revolutions, tiny fires that flame the hearts of their neighbors, and then their other neighbors. Mohammed’s life wasn’t in vain. It was a part of a coming, unavoidable destiny and he saw it ahead of time.
I’m deeper in my practice now, Water Serpent Dharma. The next post will be about what that is and how it keeps me, my family grounded while we work within and beside our vulnerable communities. Everyone needs to meditate now more than ever because the resistance will need resilient people.
REST IN POWER my dear friend, Mohammed. I am sorry that I couldn’t have done more. I will show your story at my next art show and I won’t stop talking about you.