When Your Heart Burns

These are the questions currently running through my mind and heart: 

What do you do when your heart burns in your chest for a people you have grown to love and call your own family and yet you are being called further out? 

How do you describe the journey of leaving your home only to find it more fully amongst a displaced people? 

With what words do you chronicle the story set to the backdrop of dust and star-filled desert skies, the ancient story of God-become-flesh dwelling among us whatever tent or cinderblock home houses us? 

I think the closest I can come is simply to tell you about the ones I've fallen in love with in a corner of the Middle East, and who have taught me so much about love and about trust.

One of the first families I met upon moving to the Middle East. Their mama has taught me how to make kubbeh and strong arab coffee, and has compassion for other women who are struggling around her. Their eldest daughter has shared my couch watching movies, spent the night, and gone shopping in our closets. Their oldest son walks us home after night visits to make sure we arrive safely. Upon leaving and looking each in the eye, enveloping each child in a big hug, I stood humbled, sensing the weight of honor being exchanged in the moment, knowing they had given me one of the greatest gifts, their trust, over the last two+ years. I don't take that lightly and I am forever indebted.

My nephews Diyeh and Ibrahim & family. I will never forget the way that Diyeh would run to greet me upon arrival at their door with sparkling eyes & great joy. It was a privilege to accompany their mama to the hospital the night she needed an emergency c-section to deliver Ibrahim, and to welcome him into the world and watch him grow. Those long ramadan nights spent on the veranda with a pile of kids drinking maté and sharing our lives may never leave my memory. The time spent swaying, holding the baby, singing the boys to sleep was not empty time, but full of presence, love and hope. And the way their mama told me to avoid the formalities and handed me the phone to greet her mother when she called showed me how much a part of the family I am.

Rimas, Innas, & their family. Rimas is my favorite dance partner, and she lights up the small sitting room in her families' home. She leaves me voice messages on whatsapp that melt me to the core. I was present at her last birthday party which involved a lot of dancing, kids, cake, and giant party poppers. Her mother is one who I love like my own sister, and the memory of the two of them standing at the door, backlit as I walked out into the night the day before I left the desert, will be forever etched in my heart, a memory of a connection real and deep we have formed through years & many hours of sitting sharing hearts and drinking tea.

I will never forget these ones who allowed me into their lives, at first barely speaking their language, and who eventually embraced me as family. I will never forget the walks through neighborhoods, past jasmine hanging down walls to the doorsteps of ones I love. I will never be the same. I consider myself one of the richest people on the planet.

شكرا اهلي