One sunny afternoon, I was playing a ball game in the garden with Aliya (7) and Marcel (9) when, suddenly, Aliya threw the ball at Marcel and it hit him hard in the chest. Rage rose in him within seconds, and he was just about to attack Aliya. He screamed and ran towards her like a furious bull about to charge. A split second before I managed to shout “STOP!” and run over to them, he paused. He did touch her, but then stepped back, clenched his fists, twisted his body, shouted a few words, and ran back into the house.

Aliya froze and started crying, so I hugged her.

That evening, I recalled the moment and said to Marcel:

“When you got so angry with Aliya while we were playing, you did something huge.”

“What?” he asked.

“You were ready to rip her to pieces, but you stopped.”

We cuddled.

“This is why people fight each other, and why there are wars in the world. People struggle to stop themselves, like you did. What you did was HUGE.”

I could still feel how much anger had moved through him that afternoon.
But I could also see something else: strength. The kind of strength it takes not to hurt another person at the very moment when every part of you wants nothing but that.