I would like to tell you the story of a girl who was one of my best friends when I was a teenager. I'll call her Anon (anonymous) and keep the details vague to protect her privacy. Anon was born in the part of Kurdistan that lies in Iraq in the days when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. After several family members and friends were taken captive and/or murdered by Hussein's regime, Anon and her family fled Kurdistan before they too would be murdered. The initial flight to safety took several weeks if not months while it would take years before they found a new home in the city where we met. My friend was a young girl when she left Kurdistan, yet when she talked about her childhood it was clear to see that the memories still haunted her. She'd get this far-away look in her eyes, as if she was looking at a movie of her own life, replaying images from her childhood on a screen only she could see.
Anon is one of the kindest and gentlest people I've ever met, someone always there for her family and friends, always ready with a smile or a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on if that's what you needed. She loved making others smile and laugh, loved laughing herself as well. When I think about Anon today, I remember the twinkle in her eyes when she smiled and the sound of her laughter most of all. To those who didn't know her story, Anon was just that - a smiling and laughing teenager. To those who did know her story, she was an inspiration.
Anon's family managed to take two photo albums with them when they fled Kurdistan. Albums with photos of their home, their life, their family members and friends, the country they called home. The world in those photos was completely different from the life I knew, yet through Anon's stories it became familiar to me. Sometimes, she'd show me a face in a photograph, tell me who that person was, what they had meant to her. At times her mother or one of her siblings would tell stories of their own about the person in the photo. Most of the places in the photos, they explained, were gone now. Of the people, some had fled, some had been murdered, some they had lost touch with and were trying to find information about. Those who had managed to get away were spread across the globe - families and communities torn apart by war, forced to find a safe haven away from their home and their people.
These words above, I wrote them on the 23rd of February 2015. That's over three years ago by now. As I read these words, my friend's smile comes back to me. The way I felt completely at home in her home, no matter what. The way her family accepted me, a bit like a lost puppy - The way they took me in, fed me, had me over to stay the night more times than I can remember, trusted me to babysit or help with the cleaning or explain an official letter in plain English. The way they showed me what it meant to have a family truly accepting of who I was as a person. The way they showed me what hospitality and friendship and unconditional love felt like. And yes, I remember the photo albums. As I was reading through my own words, I saw the photo albums in my mind's eye. And what I saw too was the sadness. All that history gone for good and all those people lost to time and death and distance. All those faces and all those places, only really alive and present and real in fading photos and in memories fading faster than the photos. My friend, her siblings and her parents, her other family members, the people in their town, the friends and family members who were arrested or taken or simply disappeared and were never heard from again... That, to me, is the face of war and loss. The tears in my friend's eyes as she'd talk about a family member and that far-away clinical way she'd recount the capture and execution of people she knew, almost as if the memories she shared weren't hers but someone else's. The way my friend's mother would smile through her tears, sitting there laughing, talking and gesturing, flat out refusing to make remembering loved ones a sad occasion even though she was talking about siblings, cousins and childhood friends who'd been murdered... That is war. That is loss. That is courage and that is love.
Anon is one of the kindest and gentlest people I've ever met, someone always there for her family and friends, always ready with a smile or a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on if that's what you needed. She loved making others smile and laugh, loved laughing herself as well. When I think about Anon today, I remember the twinkle in her eyes when she smiled and the sound of her laughter most of all. To those who didn't know her story, Anon was just that - a smiling and laughing teenager. To those who did know her story, she was an inspiration.
Anon's family managed to take two photo albums with them when they fled Kurdistan. Albums with photos of their home, their life, their family members and friends, the country they called home. The world in those photos was completely different from the life I knew, yet through Anon's stories it became familiar to me. Sometimes, she'd show me a face in a photograph, tell me who that person was, what they had meant to her. At times her mother or one of her siblings would tell stories of their own about the person in the photo. Most of the places in the photos, they explained, were gone now. Of the people, some had fled, some had been murdered, some they had lost touch with and were trying to find information about. Those who had managed to get away were spread across the globe - families and communities torn apart by war, forced to find a safe haven away from their home and their people.
These words above, I wrote them on the 23rd of February 2015. That's over three years ago by now. As I read these words, my friend's smile comes back to me. The way I felt completely at home in her home, no matter what. The way her family accepted me, a bit like a lost puppy - The way they took me in, fed me, had me over to stay the night more times than I can remember, trusted me to babysit or help with the cleaning or explain an official letter in plain English. The way they showed me what it meant to have a family truly accepting of who I was as a person. The way they showed me what hospitality and friendship and unconditional love felt like. And yes, I remember the photo albums. As I was reading through my own words, I saw the photo albums in my mind's eye. And what I saw too was the sadness. All that history gone for good and all those people lost to time and death and distance. All those faces and all those places, only really alive and present and real in fading photos and in memories fading faster than the photos. My friend, her siblings and her parents, her other family members, the people in their town, the friends and family members who were arrested or taken or simply disappeared and were never heard from again... That, to me, is the face of war and loss. The tears in my friend's eyes as she'd talk about a family member and that far-away clinical way she'd recount the capture and execution of people she knew, almost as if the memories she shared weren't hers but someone else's. The way my friend's mother would smile through her tears, sitting there laughing, talking and gesturing, flat out refusing to make remembering loved ones a sad occasion even though she was talking about siblings, cousins and childhood friends who'd been murdered... That is war. That is loss. That is courage and that is love.
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