I could feel the cold tiles under my cheek as I lay face down on the floor of our tiny bathroom in our Cairo apartment. It hardly felt like “ours” but it was where we had dropped all of our bags early that day.

That day was the day we moved back to Egypt. We had been living in the USA for a few years after leaving Palestine but now we were back in the Middle East again. This time for a 5 year term in Cairo, the city where my parents met and I had later been born. There had been a lot of excitement leading up to the move. But when our plane descended through the cloud of city smog and hit the black asphalt of the runway my heart dropped. The reality of the move hadn’t hit me until that very moment. I knew that moment well since I had experienced it before, but I still was never prepared for it.

A couple of MCCers, and Egyptian friends as well, were there to greet us at the airport. I called dibs on riding in MCC’s old clunky blue jeep. I was stacked on top of suitcases without a seat belt as our driver swerved and honked his horn incessantly through crazy traffic. It should have been thrilling but I was in a complete daze.

That night I ended up sharing a stiff bed with my sister in a room that had the ugliest wallpaper. It was decorated with rows of fluffy white cats staring at me with creepy blue eyes. That wasn’t the only reason I couldn’t sleep. My body was exhausted from the hours on the plane and the long layover in Frankfurt, but my heart wouldn’t let me rest.

It came on gradually. I cannot name what IT was because I still haven’t discovered the right words to describe IT. I haven’t encountered anything like this before or after that night. It was a darkness that clung heavy to my chest, and with only the bizarre cats as witnesses, threatened to strangle my small twelve-year-old-body. I stood up slowly and walked the hall of the apartment to the front living room. I paced and wandered and beat the walls. I felt blind and dizzy and shaky. I didn’t know what to do with what I was feeling and everything in front of me blurred.

I started to cry. It was a sobbing and wailing that I couldn’t stop. I panicked when I realized that I couldn’t control it. It brought me to my knees and I sobbed in a way that I never have again since. It went on for so long that I had to muster my last ounce of energy to crawl to the tiny bathroom and throw up. My body felt crushed and broken and too small to contain what was happening. I just lay there on the floor sobbing and sobbing until my face hurt and my throat hurt and every inch of me hurt.

My mother appeared at one point at the bathroom door. She took a seat timidly on the bathtub ledge and seemed somewhat terrified of me. I could tell she didn’t know what to do.

Eventually I must have fallen asleep. The next morning I found myself back in the bed next to the cats and wondered if it had all been a dream. Suddenly a fruit seller drove his donkey cart of lemons past my window shouting, “LEMMMOOOON! LEMOOOOOOON!” and jolted me fully awake. My eyes were puffy and my arms were like wet bags of sand. I couldn’t move. It was all very real.

That fall I started school at New Ramsis College but all of my classes were in Arabic. My parents thought I could figure it out because I had gone to school in Arabic in Palestine. This was a completely different dialect though, and I had forgotten a lot of my Palestinian Arabic while in the US anyway.

I ended up huddling in the back of class reading the only book in English this school’s library had: Lifted Up By Angels by Laurelyn McDaniel. I ate lunch alone, had an awful time figuring out how to make friends, and did not learn a thing in any subject. I had been through this so many times and my energy to plug in felt completely depleted this go around.

One day my history teacher, Mr. Mahmoud, yelled at me in front of the entire class when I didn’t get my pencil out for an exam. I whispered in English “I don’t understand what you are saying or what you are teaching us!” and dropped my head on the desk embarrassed by the confusion. He was surprised that no administration had explained that I was exempt from exams until I picked up more Arabic.

Halfway through the school year it was so bad that my parents let me drop out. I was a Middle School drop out. A group of Eastern Mennonite University cross-cultural students brought all of my Sonlight Curriculum homeschooling materials with them that semester from the USA. We had them over for pizza and conducted a treasure hunt through their luggage to find all my various textbooks.

Surprisingly, homeschooling was even worse. My mom and dad were busy with work and my siblings had stayed at New Ramses College. They were young enough to pick things up a bit more easily and didn’t have the added pre-teen angst. This meant that I had no hands-on instruction and was left alone in our dark first floor apartment most days. Well..the cats were there but I wouldn’t say that odd wallpaper was comforting in any sense.

As I was schooling myself I tried to have some fun with it. I found creative ways to figure out Greek mythology and memorize lengthy Bible passages. If I completed an assignment I would reward myself by watching the Sound of Music, or dialing up to AIM to connect with far away friends. But frequently I would just let the book in my hands drop to the floor and scream into a pillow until my head hurt.

The last version of myself was left back in rural Pennsylvania and I missed her so much. That girl played softball, practiced the viola for orchestra, preformed in school musical productions, was in honors classes, and gossiped with best friends about periods and boys. That girl wasn’t just softly fading away but rather being abruptly cut and ripped out of me. She was dying. I didn’t know how to say goodbye and didn’t want to. I couldn’t recognize myself without her and her familiar scaffolding.

Over time it got better. The other MCC kids and my youth group (at Heliopolis Community Church) saved me. They were lovingly persistent in hugging me tight and including me in their life. They rescued me from the dark year of readjustment. We were all in the same boat, in many ways, as a roaming international group of teenagers. These friends will always have a special place with me because of their gentle saving grace while I wrestled with reconstructing my identity.

I also miraculously managed to combine 7th and 8th grade through homeschooling. The following school year I tested straight into high school at The American International School of Egypt. At AISE I made solid friendships, joined the basketball team, and was later accepted into the rigorous International Baccalaureate program. It wasn’t perfect or easy, but at least I wasn’t alone.

I don’t know what to think of my [thirteen year old self]. I have ignored her, called her a brat, was ashamed of her, was scared of her, or wanted to roll my eyes and tell her she was being melodramatic.

It wasn’t until recently that I have really turned around to look straight back at her. I have found the courage to comfort her and lay down next to her on the cold bathroom tiles without cringing. I take her seriously and give her space to feel what she is feeling, and express what she needs to express. I listen and let her cry in my arms as I imagine God folding in around us and holding us together in that horrible and formative moment.

A few months ago I spent a night at the maternity hospital, as I often do, with one of our Arabic speaking patients in labor. The big difference here was that one of our midwives had discovered this woman’s full-term baby had died in utero. Her husband was still stuck in a refugee camp in their home country and she was all alone. I had been called to support her through this difficult birth.

It was time to dig into my past and recall my [thirteen year old self] into this space. She is the part of me that could be profoundly present with the pain, lack of control, and loss in the room. She can intimately relate to the themes of this woman’s emotions on some level. Although, I could barely compare my life experience to anything this refugee mother had suffered.

I held her hand as I lay in my cot next to her bed and never let go even as we both fell in and out of sleep.

As I lay there it dawned on me that the way I responded during our move to Egypt did not break me. It is actually the part of me that shapes my compassion and broadens my love. My experiences, at thirteen, are not my weakness but the source of strength which enables me the power to meet our patients in such extreme conditions.

The next morning this mother moved into active labor and squeezed my hand tighter. I could sense her shake and panic as the reality of the situation hit her. Her head scarf was falling down so I respectfully fixed it and held my hand firmly on her head to communicate that I was there to steady and anchor her through this. I caught her eye and we shared a quiet look of deep unspoken sadness and solidarity right before she pushed her baby out.

“Bismallah Al Rahman Al Rahim // In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.” She prayed over her lifeless son.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

_____________________

Note: 

“Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim” is the first verse of the first chapter (Surah Al-Fatihah) of the Quran. The fact that the Quran starts with this first verse alone signifies its importance and further emphasizes the need to start all our tasks in the name of Allah (God).

When a person begins something by pronouncing God’s name (with sincerity in his heart), he will enjoy God’s support and compassion. God will bless his efforts and protect him. For whenever man turns to God, God turns to him as well.

“A grief-stricken individual who says ‘bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim’ three times, while looking up to the sky, will in return have Allah eliminate his grief, if He wills it so.”             -Imam Musa

ا مِنْ أحَدٍ دَهَمَهُ أمْرٌ يَغُمُّهُ أوْ كَرَبَتْهُ كُرْبَةٌ فَرَفَعَ رَأسَهُ إلَى السَّمَاءِ ثُمَّ قَالَ ثَلاثَ مَرَّاتٍ: ’بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ‘ إلاّ فَرَّجَ اللهُ كُرْبَتَهُ وَأذْهَبَ غَمَّهُ، إنْ شَاءَ اللهُ تَعَالَى