To a Family Like Mine in Yemen

from 09.10.19

To a Mother Like Mine in Yemen,
When you pull yourself away from the relief of unconsciousness and dare to open your eyes, your children are still sleeping beside you. The sun has risen, but you don’t wake them because when they are asleep they are not hungry and they are in a better world. In the mornings, my own mother used to throw up the shades and start singing. And I realize now she could do this because there was breakfast waiting for us in the kitchen and our backpacks were lined up by the door ready for school. But you have no food to give your children, and they have no place to learn or play with friends. Their bodies are dwindling, and the world does not know. And you, how much of yourself have you lost to this war? How much have you carved away to preserve them? How many of your dreams have you let mingle with the dust? And how many men have taken advantage of the chaos to use your body and ignore your soul? The world does not know you, but on the broken wings of some feeble prayer, your story made it to me. And I am looking in your eyes as best I can from oceans away, and I will not look away—for you could have been my mother.

To a Man Like My Father in Yemen,
When the bombs and gunfire wake your children and they cling to you shaking, what do you tell them? When I was afraid in the nighttime, my father would tell me, “You will be okay.” And for the most part, I believed him because my fears were imaginary. When your children are hungry and beg you for food, what do you tell them? When I was hungry, my father would always share what he had. But you have nothing to share. When your wife looks at you, craving an answer, can you meet her eyes? When you lie awake at night and the question returns—does the world not care—what do you answer yourself? Here in America, I live with the assumption that someone will always care about me, that if I’m ever in need, someone will help. But you can’t honestly tell yourself that because for the last five years it has not been true. And today, I’d imagine, you can barely stand because all your pain is multiplied by the pain of those you love. Your hunger times your children’s hunger. Your hopelessness times your wife’s despair. Your fear times your children’s terror. Your secret tears times all of theirs. And you, like my father, will own it all until the end, whatever the end may be.

To a Girl Like My Sister in Yemen,
Do you feel like a person anymore? Have you been spared any of the things I’ve read? In the worst place in the world to be a woman, does anyone ever give you honor or show you love? I watched with joyful tears as my sister got married this summer. She married the man she loves, and she was not unloaded as a burden but given as a gift. But you, did your family have any other choice but to marry you? And are you old enough to be someone’s wife? Did anyone ever teach you to read or write? Has anyone given you the means to be more than a sexual mechanism? And if this war ends and your hunger finally leaves, will your life be any better? I hope an angel of mercy feeds you bread, and I hope that they see you are starving for more than food. I’m going to see my sister next weekend, and when I see her bright spirit, I will cry to think she could have been you.

To a Boy Becoming a Man, Like My Brother, in Yemen,
You were a boy when this war began, the last time you ate till your stomach was full. And now, five years later, you are almost a man. But the last five years were not spent learning or growing. They have been spent working to feed your family, and maybe even fighting. You have not given your thoughts to dreams or aspirations, but to survival. You have not been taught how to make peace, but how to make war. You have not been encouraged to love a girl, but to avoid love like a liability. My brother began college a week ago, and already he has all the things that have been stolen from you. He has visions for the future, professors teaching him to enforce justice, and curious siblings asking him about the girls on campus. But these things are only fantasies you cherished as a boy. This war has built you into a man by chiseling away the parts that make you human. It has turned you into someone driven by impulses—hunger, lust, fear—rather than someone guided by his heart and his mind. And though you have survived, the boy from five years ago has not.

To a 15-Year-Old Boy Like My Brother in Yemen,
What do you enjoy? Who do you hope to be someday? Does anyone ask you these questions anymore? My brother is your age, and he enjoys soccer and Instagram pages full of mind-boggling facts. People ask him what he wants to be, and even though he might not know, he is encouraged to dream. I’m sure that you dream too when the hunger keeps you awake at night. I’m sure a beautiful world fills your head—a place of safety and happiness and purpose. I pray the last five years have not destroyed your capacity to hope for these things. But these things must be secondary when you don’t know if you will eat today. When a cup of clean water is a novelty. When your friends are dying of curable diseases. And maybe you even feel guilty for wishing for more when all some people want is to live. That is the curse of war and famine—they make desire selfish and happiness an offense. But I want you to hope as much as I want your stomach to be full.

To Someone Like Me in Yemen,
You lie awake at night thinking about me, or some version of me—safe, healthy, well-fed, privileged . . . selfish. And you are right. But several weeks ago I heard your story, and now I lie awake imagining you, or some version of you—endangered, sick, starving, dying . . . pleading. And now that I know who you are and what you are suffering, I must choose to be the priest or the Samaritan. And though I’d claim to be the latter, I have to admit the truth. The truth is you don’t matter to me like you should. I’ve seen your hunger, but I don’t feel it myself. I’ve read about your sickness, but I am well. I’ve even prayed for your deliverance, but then I forget. My own plans and my own dreams crowd you out of my heart and my mind. But yours is not a story to sigh at, and you are not a statistic to overlook. You are not a stranger on a distant shore whose life has no relation to mine. You are my brother and my sister, someone who shares my youth and my hopes. Your hunger rightly holds a claim on my cabinets full of food. Your poverty suitably demands a share of my wealth. Your pain fittingly appeals that I spill my own blood. Your skin lawfully begs that I hold you in my arms. And your eyes justly cry that I meet them with my own. So now I say as best I can that you matter to me. And to the Man who left his wealth, wrapped himself in your skin, spilled his own blood, and said: come to me.