Remembering Mira

Mike & Friends Blog

Crystal Zevon

Crystal Zevon is author of 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon,' an oral history of the life of her former husband and lifelong friend and co-conspirator

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December 20th, 2012 4:46 PM

Palestinian Warrior for Peace

By Crystal Zevon

As the country, and indeed, the world, mourns the tragic and unnecessary loss of so many young lives to the Newtown School Massacre, many peace activists and advocates for non-violence around the world are mourning another loss… the loss of a tireless advocate for peace and reconciliation, a blogger on this website, Mira Dabit.

I was sound asleep in my grandson’s bed when my cell phone woke me on December 15^th at 12:30 a.m. Slightly annoyed, I answered the phone. It was my partner from Searching for Occupy, Denise Valdez. She was crying. No. She was sobbing. For a few moments, I listened to her crying. Then, she managed to blurt out, “Crystal, I have some bad news…” A pause. A sob. “Mira is dead.”

What? No. I must have heard that wrong. Mira, our Palestinian cohort from Occupy Washington, D.C. and Peace House, was only 27 years old. I just talked to her… what?... two weeks ago? She was excited about her newest endeavor ‘Love Music Hate Racism’. She was bubbling over in a characteristic burst of uninhibited enthusiasm…

Sadly, I did not hear it wrong. Mira, even when she phoned me, had been sick. Apparently, she had gone to the hospital a few times, but the last time she got fed up with the hours of waiting. She was Palestinian so, of course, she had to line up in the uninsured queue. She left before seeing a doctor and died a few hours later.

Tomorrow, my twin grandsons will arrive for the holidays. It will be the first time in their 9 years that I have gotten to host Christmas in my home, and I’ve been planning it for weeks. Since learning of Mira’s death, which coincided with the losses suffered by so many grieving parents in my neighboring state of Connecticut, my giddy spirits have sobered. I can’t turn on the television without hearing parents talking about buying bullet proof backpacks, NRA advocates screaming for more guns in schools, Democrats so carefully crafting a gun control platform that won’t cost them an election… I think of Mira telling me about growing up in Palestine, of having to wear a gas mask to school as a child and how it would get caught in her hair and make her cry… I read emails from my friends who visited Pakistan and met families who had lost children and mothers and sisters and brother to U.S. Drone strikes… friends of mine who went to Gaza taking medical supplies to the families without clean water or food following the Israeli invasion and coming back to tell me, “The world doesn’t care.”

It is unbearable. I want to scream and shout and cry and MAKE SOMEONE LISTEN… CARE… BELIEVE…

I curl up in a ball on the floor next to my dog, and an image of Mira, always smiling, floats through my consciousness, light as air, soft as a cloud. Instantly, I am calmed. Or, at least calm enough to ask myself ‘what would Mira do?’… Mira, who grew up knowing first hand the terrible realities of oppression in occupied Palestine. Mira who, as she fought ardently for the dignity and rights her people and her country, reached out at every opportunity to Jews and Israelis with an open heart and a fervent belief that ‘we can work through this together’… Mira, who after graduating from university, went to Ireland to work in Peace Houses there. Mira, who came to ‘occupy’ alongside us in Washington, D.C. with her unquenchable thirst for freedom and justice topped only by her absolute belief that love conquers all hate… I hug my dog tighter and I can hear her voice, clearly, saying, “Just keep going. You can’t stop. You have to just keep going. That’s how it works.”

Please watch the videos I put together from interviews with Mira a year ago in Washington, D.C. She tells her story… and, offers us all a way to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m94OLm3eKgU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNbtX3tBeLE

Friday, December 21st, 4:00 PM
Memorial service at the Peace House for Mira. Bring food, stories, and love. This service will be for close friends, fellow activists, etc. The Peace House is located at 1233 12th Street NW.

Saturday, December 22, 2012, 5:00-7:00 PM
Mira's Memorial Service at Bus Boy's and Poets, 5th and K St. location.

Saturday, December 22, 2012, 8:00-9:00 PM
Candle Lit Vigil for Mira at Freedom Plaza. In DC, many of us met Mira in Freedom Plaza during Occupy DC and thought it appropriate to meet there in order to celebrate and reflect on that fiery soul that Mira showed everyone not only as a fellow revolutionary and activist, but as a dear friend.