Baking Ghorayba Through Grief in Gaza: The Sweetness of Love, the Bitterness of Loss
A year has passed since the last time I decided to break free from the confines of a single mold —the mold of sorrow— with each of us trapped in our own inescapable mold. The period of time each of us needs to break through this mold and step into the outside world varies. Today, my period ended, and when I decided to break this mold, I found myself turning to make Ghorayba (a traditional sweet). I did not stray far from the scattered remnants of the break I caused in the mold, but I am trying.
Ghorayba; the sweet of ghee and sugar, and the sweet of loss. You may wonder how something so simple, made of sugar and ghee, can be tied to grief and sorrow. The sweet mixes with the bitterest of things in this world. The hardest part is realizing that you are cloaking the bitterness of loss with a touch of sweetness, trying to erase it for others. Ghorayba is a tradition we inherited. We used to eat it in the days following someone’s death, when their family would distribute this sweet in memory of their soul. I never imagined that time would whisk me away so quickly—from being a child waiting for her piece of Ghorayba to becoming a young woman who makes it and distributes it to other children in memory of her husband, Anas.
I poured the ghee, sugar, and vanilla, and began to make it. This sweet that held within it an indescribable taste, a flavor of memories that cannot be put into words. I was stepping out of the mold of tradition that had imposed Ghorayba as a symbol of sorrow. Instead, I made it on an ordinary day, simply as a type of dessert. I remember the laughter of Anas, accompanied by his disapproval of what I was making, fearing it would bring sorrow. I always disagreed with this belief, which I considered to be superstition, but I found myself dragging Anas into the abyss of absence.
I started adding the flour to the ghee and sugar, and memories of all the times I had made it with Anas flooded back. Anas laughing at me as I made it with such passion, trying to convince me to buy it ready-made instead of going through the trouble of making it. My careful selection of ingredients, the joy I felt in completing it, and the sparkle in Anas’s eyes when he tasted it. But today, Anas is no longer here to laugh and tease me, and no praise comes from him anymore. As for the ingredients, not only are they now available at exorbitant prices, but you are also forced to use the type dictated by the war, with no options to select your preferred kind. I, who once took such care in choosing, found myself making it today with nothing but hope that the children would eat it and pray for Anas’s eternal rest.
I watched it baking in the oven, slowly turning golden. That golden color gave me a glimpse of what we might one day have: a golden path that could connect us to those we’ve lost and those we love. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I could not allow myself to feel its sweetness; not because it was made in memory of Anas, but because it wasn’t for Anas. Everything around us breathes life into those memories that will never die.
It wasn’t just about making Ghorayba; it was about connecting with the past and with those we’ve lost. Every time we distribute Ghorayba to our loved ones in memory of the deceased, we give them the chance to reflect and contemplate the life that once was, and how their presence was sweet, while their absence is bitter.
