The Right to Live

Hush child, the night is still, but we must move. To wait is to die, to move is to risk it all; but God willing, we will rise if we fall. This land is my home, yet I recognize it not. The days of my youth are but a dream, far from me; a dream you will never know. How I long for the days of old, the days when peace reigned, and life was freeing. When neighbors greeted one another with a smile and a kiss; when it was the village who raised each child.

Now I find myself in a land unknown, a land unfamiliar where all things seem cold. A land, where they say I am free, but I can barely breathe. Each day when I wake, I feel the snake constricting my mind, squeezing the remaining life from my body. I am alive. I have escaped. But now, I am living in the abyss; conflicted inside from the joy of being alive, and the sorrow of seeing so many die, leaving them behind. This land is at peace, but I am at war. How can so many live carefree, while my people drop, one… by one… by one, until we are no more. The ravages of war have left me with a name I cannot shake, “refugee.” That is what they call me. I am no longer a name, just a number on a plane, being sent to play the game of easing the conscious of those who refrain, from truly making a change. But, it is not only me, for you see, there are countless others. I, am the lucky one. Others make it out, only to be turned around, left a sea, to face the violent breeze, that claims lives with relative ease. Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Vietnam, Burma, Russia, China, the world looks on, silently shaking their heads, before laying in their beds and resting, unfettered. Backs turned, eyes up, we pledge our allegiance to one nation, without consideration of the implications.

But, in pledging my allegiance, I did stop and think. I turned my head to the side, and looked at her standing beside me. What is her story I wondered, I can see she is far from her home. I took a risk, and stepped out of my comfort zone. “Hi, my name is Natasha,” I smiled. She looked at me startled, and hesitantly replied, introducing herself, confidence building in her eyes. “Where are you from,” I asked. Her accent clear and strong, “Somalia” she replied, and then the joy was gone. It was there that day, that I decided to reach out and take a chance; to enter the story of another, and wipe away the thought of “other.” Not knowing where the road would lead, but finding a whole new world, that I had never seen; right there, in the middle of my city, is a drop of another land. A culture rich and deep where there are many Muhammads, and Ahmednur, Faiso, Waris, and the joy filled Sudanese lady living on the third floor. I have encountered a culture of love and hope, that refuses to give in or give up; but fights on, heads high, eyes on what lies ahead, but never forgetting what they left behind.

And from that decision, a new me has risen. And now, their fight is my fight, and until they win, I loose, for the best part of me can only live, when others, have that same chance too.