So writes Janet Varner Gunn, who from 1988 to 1990 took time out from university teaching to do human rights work on the West Bank. During that time she became involved with the case of Mohammad Abu Aker, a Palestinian teenager who was critically shot during a stone-throwing demonstration. The years following Mohammad's injury, when he was deemed a "living martyr" of the Intifada until his eventual death at nineteen in 1990, are recounted in this deeply personal book.

Gunn interweaves her account of Mohammad's medical struggles and his symbolic place in the Intifada with her own story of loss and recovery. As a human rights worker for whom Mohammad initially represented a "case," Gunn was involved in getting him the medical care he needed to survive. She became fascinated by the way Mohammad's injury and subsequent "second life" took on a larger significance because of its timing, which coincided with the declaration of an independent Palestine.