Layan was 5 when the buildings started collapsing around her in late October 2023. Aunt Yara’s new born baby died only from the sounds and the shaking. For months after Layan put her small hand on her chest every twenty minutes or so, to check if her heart was still beating. When in doubt she asked others, even the truck drivers who delivered water in bottles.

Layan’s favorite movie was UP. A widower ties balloons to his house and flies away. Off to a location he and his wife dreamt their entire life of visiting. Layan watched the movie again and again, at least a dozen times, till father swapped his laptop for a bag of rice and a chicken.

Many nights she fell asleep imagining flying off with her house and whole family to South-America, like grumpy, but kind Carl in UP. 

When she turned six she got a stunning treat. A chocolate filled croissant – the first and only one in her life – and a balloon filled with helium. 

She and her best friend Yara spent days experimenting with what this balloon could carry. A small toy car of her brother? Yes. One of her T-shirts? Yes. Yara’s slipper? No. An empty marmalade jar? Also no. A scarf? Yes. A little coffee cup? Yes, but barely. 

When the balloon gradually lost its floating power Layan and Yara got to work. They calculated how many little coffee cups would be equal to Layan’s house and everything and everyone in it. MIT professors would have a hard time reproducing their calculations, but they arrived at 10,000. 

That launched their summer of 2024 project: collect 10,000 balloons. 

Every chance they got they dragged an adult with them, an aunt, an uncle, sometimes just a friendly looking neighbor, and sometimes they snuck off without supervision, to ask anyone for balloons. 

They got to 29 and even figured out that their best chance to have them all filled with helium was at the nearest hospital. 

Their parents forbade them to go there and refused to take them. ‘Helium is too precious now, things have changed a lot since your birthday, they need it for MRI machines’, said Layan’s father. 

Layan asked where those MRI machines fly to and why. Father smiled and said: ‘They don’t fly, they look inside people to help them.’ 

Yara made it to the hospital a few days later. An Israeli sniper hit her in the neck. 

The last Layan saw of Yara was when she was lying in the middle of the road with wide eyes and both hands pressed on her own throat. Layan remembers being snatched up and being dragged off, but doesn’t remember by whom. 

Yara did not make it. To everyone’s surprise the injury wasn’t instantly fatal, but the hospital was overflowing with wounded after a heavy bombardment and the staff got to her too late to do anything. She never said another word, but Layan heard the adults say many times Yara was very lucky, because she had died in the arms of her mother. 

Layan cried so much and for so long her dad got scared she’d die of heart break. 

Layan could not be shielded from hearing the adults process events. Layan knew Yara went limp forever in her mother’s arms as mum was crying: ‘I will join you soon, soul of my soul, I will join you soon, you just play, and I will soon be with you, soul of my soul.’ 

Four days after Yara’s death Layan’s father came home with all 29 balloons filled with helium. It had cost him the only 10 liters of gasoline he had stored away. Handing them to his daughter he muttered: ‘May God forgive me if that helium had better uses.’ 

And so, to be sure her best friend had something to play with, while waiting for her mum to join her, Layan used the 29 balloons to send her doll house, Layan’s best possession, up to the heavens. 

To some self-defense means just this: having little girls send up their doll house to the sky, so their best friend doesn’t miss her mum too much.