The Country We Loved Didn’t Love Us Back. Maybe This Time Would Be Different.
FEBRUARY 14, 2023| SADIA ALI HEIL
My room is my very own special place, will I decorate it with leather or with lace?
Grade school poetry at its finest, I wrote these deeply profound words while daydreaming about having my very own bedroom someday. An introvert within a boisterous Desi family, I longed for space to take a deep breath after a long day—a refuge with posters of butterflies and kittens, and a desk for my journals and sticker collection.
Being outdoors was my sanctuary back then. I caught tadpoles and turtles in a muddy creek with my brother and biked freely throughout the neighborhood with friends. We’d spin and jump off the steel roundabout at the playground and gather in a cul-de-sac with neighbors for sparklers and fireworks on the Fourth of July. After dark, my siblings and I would head home, where our family of nine squeezed into a three-bedroom, 1,320-square-foot townhouse.
I recently passed through my childhood neighborhood, and it was much smaller than I remembered. The wooden bus stop where Phyllis painted a wondrous lion mural with emerald leaves was gone. Vinyl slides and new swingsets replaced the steel roundabout at the playground near Rose’s house. Ms. White’s once-polished home looked almost deserted, and the pale siding on our old home appeared fresh.
https://thewarhorse.org/american-military-families-help-afghan-allies-build-new-life-2/
