i am, however, going to shout about how much i love my immigrant friends and found family: how welcome they have made me feel in my own community, how they practice radical hospitality, how they have moved over and made space for me in their homes and lives, and can show us how community will be the thing, if anything exists, that will save us. this *is* a hill i will die on: immigrants make us better.

because good writers show and don’t just tell, it’s my hope that the following examples will inspire some memories (or some intentional noticing of the same) from your own life:

remember the first time trump was elected and well-meaning liberals everywhere (myself included) panicked at the thought that they could no longer trust institutions and politicians to look out for their best interests? our friends made space at their tables (or on their tablecloths on the floors of their living rooms), poured us cups of tea, and reminded us that people over the course of the history of the world have endured far worse. they cared for us as members of their community, and taught us the importance of both giving and accepting help- of reciprocal relationships. they reminded us of our capacity for resistance and endurance and of our own resilience. they taught us that believing that those in power would look out for those on the margins was a privilege.

remember the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were all wiping our groceries down with bleach and wondering if any of us would have income or be allowed to leave our houses ever again? i was 5 months pregnant and together with my partner had put an offer in on a house 48 hours prior to the world shutting down. a dear friend and former colleague from bosnia shared that she and her husband had had their son during the war in the early to mid 1990s, and that he was the light of their lives. fast forward several years and the pandemic is becoming endemic and i have a hilarious, beautiful, sassy 4 year old who is the very best.

remember when in 2021 the taliban took control of afghanistan for a second time, and sara and i totally disappeared into a mountain of spreadsheets and signal messages for literal months? our friends taught us resilience and badassery, one even cracking jokes about the family vacation and working to get out dozens of other vulnerable people while simultaneously trying to get his own family on a plane. we fretted. no, we panicked on behalf of our friends, as those friends tapped into their do-it-in-the-face-of-fear survival skills and Got Shit Done. many of them are here now. some still are not. regardless of their geographical location, they’re all resiling (note: that’s the verb form of resilience. i had to google it.) and we love them so.

so there you have it: a short list of big lessons learned from the immigrant and refugee friends i have the tremendous pleasure of knowing. it’s my hope that you find some of your own in the days, weeks, and years ahead, and that you are inspired to tell this story with me so you’ll join me on this hill and we can shout from it together that we’re better because of our diversity.

Over the years, I’ve learned to stop trying so much and just be. At times, I’m still prompted to at some point open my mouth to respond, which will inevitably lead to something weird and uncalled for popping out of my pie-hole, but when I can, I consume. I’ve learned, after many years of not listening because I’m stressed about what I’m going to say next, to just listen.

It so happens that last week my husband and I were in the back seat of a car in Lisbon in speeds that alternated between just short of warp to complete stoppage. The driver, a loyal Uberist, tried to engage in conversation. Insert sweat. But that day’s episode resulted in something I can’t stop thinking about.

He started by asking the usual conversation starters- where we had been, where we were going, and somewhere along the way he threw in an “Inshallah” into the conversation. Ah! I thought. This is something I can speak to! So I parroted it back. “Inshallah.” Our eyes met in the rear view mirror and the atmosphere of the car changed. As we jolted up and over steep cobblestone streets, this Bengali transplant immediately began to pour his heart out. He spoke of young friends of his, those who had been overwhelmed by hopelessness and ultimately succumbed to it. He spoke of his own relentlessly difficult life and the mental perseverance he was learning to build to withstand the many pressures he faced. He spoke of hope. I listened.

I didn’t say much, but spent a moment encouraging him to take one day at a time. I reminded him to always hold on to hope, that there is always a reason to make it to the next day. But mostly, I just listened because that was what he needed. 

We live in a terribly lonely world. The need to connect runs deep. John Steinbeck, in his brilliant and incomparable Grapes of Wrath, talks about the systems and institutions that hold people in poverty and oppression beginning to quake when the narrative changes from “I” to “we” and the “mine” changes to “ours.” That’s what happened in that car that day. I felt it. I felt the system begin to wonder whether they could hold this man down. When he was alone, they surely could, but if he had access to community? Connection? If he had access to encouragement and validation? 

I was thinking about this the next morning when we went for a walk; who should drive by us at that moment, in this city of almost 3 million people, but our driver, who stopped just past where we walked to pick up some passengers. He let out a hearty laugh and a wave when he saw us. 

Where can we change the narrative this week? In this pressurized and hurting world, where can we insert a “we” where someone is stuck in an “I” and where can we follow up with real action that will show them that in their pain and in their hardship, we can survive better together? And what about when it’s me that is stuck in the “I”? What then? Will I be vulnerable enough to seek out in my rich community those who will help remind me that I don’t need to worry because we have each other? Will I? Changing the world isn’t about doing something huge. It’s about nourishing the we. It’s hard; it’s often uncomfortable. It is also vital.

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When I first moved to Colorado, I had a few pretty strong opinions about Aurora: namely, that it was unsafe, gross, and a completely undesirable place to live. Why, I wanted to know, would anyone choose to live there?

Fast forward to nearly 18 years as a resident of this great state… I still question sometimes why, if I’m being honest, but I think I mostly get it now. Sure, it’s gun violence and low-income neighbors and police that fire first and ask questions later, but there are a lot of deeply beautiful things about it, too.

Aurora is Mamas Congo walking down the street in kitenge fabrics, boxes on their heads. It’s the Venezuelans and Mauritanians waiting outside the day labor center, hopeful for their chance at making a living for the day. It’s panaderias, a Vietnamese-French bakery, no fewer than 4 places named “Jambo Auto Sales”, restaurants painted like the flag of Honduras, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico. Used mattresses and used cars. It’s Hawaiian and Nigerian and Colombian food trucks, sometimes alongside one another at the food truck rally in the parking lot of the fitness center. It’s carnecerias that sell penicillin under the table when your child is sick and your insurance isn’t irnoed out. It’s neighborhood Mariachi and your Afghan family sharing tea and snacks with the unhoused folks that congregate in their lobby when it’s cold outside. It’s spotting friends and former students at the bus stop, children in my child’s school speaking Kinyarawandi, Spanish, French, Kiswahili at home. It’s the terror and thrill of driving home along Colfax at night, wondering just what you’ll see as you dodge potholes and the 15/ 15L. Whether it’s (slightly more) affordable housing, diversity, food, or community, there are plenty of reasons to love it, too.

I am still learning how to suffer well together. It does not come naturally. I still fall into the trap of platitudes. But more and more often I am learning just to sit, to share space where grief hangs, to be grateful she chose me to open up to, to remind myself that anything I say won’t work and more important than my words is my presence and the posture of my heart. I am still learning how to share the sadness without getting lost in it.

I can’t fix the sorrows of this world. I was never meant to and any attempt to do so resorts back to a white savior complex. But I can make space for grief and then, perhaps together, we can find a way to hold on to a thread of hope. Together.

“It’s up to us to take care of us.” -K

Here, our new neighbors have 40 days of free shelter and vouchers for basic meals, but not much else. The lack of government support and resources committed to this effort is quite frustrating as it’s the government both letting people in and also not getting them the work permits they badly want. However, I keep returning to what my collectivist friends have taught me and thinking about an episode of This American Life with the same title as this post: the calvary is not coming. It is up to us to take care of us.

There has been a significant grassroots effort to try and meet some of the needs in the gap in resources for our new neighbors. For instance, many families aren’t able to find housing after 40 days as they don’t have social security numbers or jobs, and many end up on the street; groups of well meaning people, mostly moms, have donated tents, blankets, and sleeping bags, and some have hosted families in their homes and begun advocating for the police not to dismantle their camps. Adults don’t get vouchers from the city for lunch, and while kids get lunch at school, everyone spends the weekend pretty hungry; local folks have been sourcing food, cooking at home, and dropping off meals. A marketplace outside of Denver has created space for pop-up immigrant businesses on Tuesdays. Again, all of this, grass-roots. Our community is expanding, and the boundaries of “us” and “them” are blurring. I am so very here for it.

As Sara eloquently wrote in her previous post, this is all an honor and a privilege: we were never meant to live such fiercely independent, isolated lives, and especially not in places so far from home. I too have experienced the delight of finding a warm meal left on my doorstep (salaam, wah tashakor bossman!), spent time marked by cups of chai and nokol consumed, and been invited to share our friends’ and families’ joy. I have experienced the heartbreak of a Hail Mary evacuation flight that never left, the Sisyphean task of searching for landlords that will rent apartments to people without work experience, and been invited to share our friends’ and families’ sadness and loss.

Through all of this, I have found the fiercest, most loyal friends. I’ve appointed several of them family. The stuff? The stuff is a vehicle to community and friendship, the key to having approximately 47 people named Mohammad in your phone, any of whom you could text if you were in trouble and all of whom would show up as quickly as possible to help.

Through my counseling program, I’ve done a decent amount of research into how newcomers adjust and assimilate into their new cultures. Something that has come up multiple times is the idea of reciprocity, otherwise known as dismantling my preconcieved idea of what a relationship with a new family *should* look like (and with it, my white savior complex) and letting it be what it is: we all need each other, and we all care for one another. The longer I do this, the more I am convinced that this is how it *actually* should be.

We rallied to welcome S. and his family at the airport and made sure their home was well- stocked with things they needed, and M. feeds me dinner on Wednesdays and A. fixed my car without letting me pay him for it. J. hosted us for lunch and taught us dabke, A. installed a sink in my bathroom, and R. put in the fans in our bedrooms. I once carried a very heavy television up G.’s stairs and drove 6 twin-sized beds around in my Impreza for the A-T family. M. taught me to read Arabic and I helped her with her English. P. let us show up at her house at 5:30am and let our kid sleep in her bedroom and gave us arepas for breakfast. I helped R. find a job and T. an apartment and years later they still send me thoughtful messages about how much that meant to them. When our new neighbors from Venezuela text and ask for jackets for their kids and backpacks to help move their things, I don’t help because I expect anything in return: I help because all of this goodness, kindness, and generosity has come back around so many times before. Because none of us are free until all of us are free. Because it is up to us to take care of us.

*initials to protect our friends’ privacy, and also to protect my access to home cooked mantu.

Little did I know what a radical reorienting I needed and the way in which it would come to me, through the Afghan diaspora.

Kandyce and I talk so often about our gratefulness for the deep community we have somehow been welcomed into. I am still often shocked by it, overwhelmed even, that we get to participate with such friends. Experiencing community in the context of collective culture has shifted my paradigms so that I stand, now, in opposition to the progressive independence hawked by our culture. Now I have no choice but to stand differently.

Why?

Because I have seen that we may try to live radically on our own two feet and nothing more, but this comes at enormous price. The truth us, we were never meant to live this way.

I have learned it through the plates of warm food left on my doorstep for no other reason than community.

I have learned it by setting down traditional definitions of time measured by lengthy to-do lists and reforming time around the number of cups of chai consumed.

I have learned it by redefining relationships in terms of presence, by being a witness to the power of “together” and by participating in the far out-weighing benefits of mutual dependence over an isolating and obsessive independence.

This week, I was reminded that I had not scheduled lunch as I had promised with a family I hadn’t seen in a long time. “When will you come?” I consistently underestimate the importance of presence and am humbled over and over again at the invitation to welcome that occurs even when I feel it is undeserved. That, in fact, is the beauty of it- the message that, despite my absence, I am important to them (to my continued astonishment). For my importance is not measured by what I’ve done, but that I’m there. I am still learning this, for the urge to do is not one easily overcome, and the stillness to be is even more difficult to enter into.

Thank God for the radical welcome I have experienced and continue to experience as we hobble along in this difficult life together.

While I had owned a few things hand-embroidered in Palestine for many years, I hadn’t heard the word for it until quite recently: tatreez. Tatreez is old. It is symbolic. It is resistance. It is healing.

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop this past weekend through the Badan Collective where I got to learn basic tatreez. If you know me at all, you know that I am meticulous (to a fault sometimes) and so tiny stitches on a canvas is very much my jam: the more complicated the pattern the better. That each of these designs carries with it a story of life, beauty, and resistance makes it even more powerful - I’d say in my humble opinion but, like most things, people with more informed opinions on such things have said it already. :)

Beyond learning the embroidery, even just being part of that group was a gift. The skies opened up and dumped nearly half a foot of very wet snow on us while traveling there. As people walked in the door and shed their coats, it was as if they were also shedding some of the weight of the last 4 months (+75 years) and walking into a space safe to express grief and practice resistance and resilience, and where nobody was going to challenge their right to exist. It’s like everyone had the space to unapologetically be: breathe, exist, remember, stitch in a refusal to be forgotten.

In spring of 2021, a friend of mine reached out with a problem. He had a distant relative in a unique situation. Her husband, an SIV applicant, had died some years before and their case had run cold. His widowed wife wanted to come to America.

A week or two went by before I was able to update them. I knew Farishta and her child should be eligible for a visa, but getting the case unstuck was another matter. Enter Diana DeGette’s office. One of DeGette’s staffer’s took on the job and together, we managed to get the case back online with the State Department. As she inched toward an interview at the US Embassy, we had no idea that August 2021 would change everything.

Enter the Taliban. August 2021. Fast-forward to the horror-struck days of mobs at Hamid Karzai International Airport, the tick-tock of constant seconds swishing away as we neared official US withdrawal. Fast-forward to the desperate making of connections between civilians and military, directions given in the middle of the night to go to this gate or that, to rumors of Pineapple signals, to the Major, who passed on the picture of one of my green card holders which led to his family's rescue. Heart palpitations. Shallow breathing. All nighters. Stomach aches. The 23rd Psalm on repeat. Taliban at Torkham. "Don't cross this weekend. The Talibs are in the hills. They'll see you." Messages coming at me from all over Afghanistan. “Send me your proof of life.” And seeing each picture and intentionally looking at each family member. I cannot tell you the insanity of those days and the wild information I found I had access to. I woke up each morning thinking of The Widow. 

The Widow: the tag we gave to Farishta*. Sometimes lengthened to The Widow of Kabul, other times, just The Widow. She wasn’t the only one with a tag. We gave them lots of tags as we worked toward solutions. It somehow helped us perhaps build the smallest of barriers between what we were dealing with and our hearts. 

As we thought through The Widow's situation, I happened upon a connection to a former marine. Together we coordinated an attempted rescue for The Widow. “Tell her to go outside her apartment. I’ve got her location. Stand by.” I was shaking uncontrollably as I passed on the instructions and then waited. That wait was agonizing, my head pounded, imagining The Widow standing outside her apartment with her child and looking for who-knows-what to come roaring around the corner. But it could happen, and this marine was our chance. I knew it could happen, because Ahmed had been rescued. Hadisa had found a way out, and we had helped Frozan as well. This could work.

But it didn’t. It didn’t work. There were too many names, too many people to rescue, and time ran out. When she went back upstairs, we knew we would have to let The Widow go.

I see her passport picture in my mind all of the time. She has a fierceness about her that tells me of what she has endured as a widowed woman in Afghanistan. Her eyes are hard, her face set. And she’s gorgeous. The truth is, she’s been hardened by a cruel world, given a promise of America, but America broke that promise. It isn’t fair. IT ISN’T FAIR!!

I thought I had control. I thought I could be the voice of justice in this case. But this is a broken world, full of corrupt and broken people (myself included). Justice will not happen, even if she someday gets here. She’s been broken by systems of oppression and violence, and we can try as we might to heal and repair, but we can’t take away the hurt done by injustice. What I can do? I can walk with her in it. I can do small things to tell her I’m still here. Still listening. I can help her look forward, somehow, some way. Without promising the impossible, I can help her hold her grief, her aloneness, and her brokenness. Maybe that was my role all along. Just to help her hold her sorrow. Maybe somehow she is holding some of mine, too.

Maybe the lesson is that in the face of injustice, we have a choice to stand differently, even when there is a cost, especially when there is a cost. I don't have control, but I can choose to be a certain way in the face of that.

* Names are changed. It's still too dangerous for people's stories to be told with their real names.

india was my first love: anyone who knows me well knows this to be true. i spent much time years ago writing about my time and experiences there, all of which are directly responsible for my career in ESL, involvement in the refugee and immigrant community, and the general course my life has taken since. i wanted to share some of these in this space for “kandyce context.”

i'm a little paranoid when it comes to trusting airlines to ensure my baggage will arrive at my destination, especially on international flights. upon my arrival i stand, minute after anxious minute, staring at the baggage carousel and dreading the moment the belt stops moving and i am still luggage-less.

since losing my luggage on a direct flight from new delhi to new jersey more than five years ago, whenever possible i pack as lightly as i can, taking only what fits into a hiking backpack. even before my tragic lost luggage experience, i preferred to take what i could carry on my back instead of dealing with suitcases and rolling bags. (have YOU ever tried navigating a wheeley bag through an indian train station?)

the thing is, carrying all your stuff in a backpack means you have to carry all your stuff in a backpack. when you spend 3 months in india enjoying the company and hospitality of friends, it means your luggage better have expansion options, or you work out, or ideally, both.

on one particular trip, mom and i happened upon a large group of sadhus (holy men) clad in saffron and dreadlocked on their way to a religious festival. happening upon pilgrims is not unusual in a country as large, diverse and observant of religious holidays as india, but i was- and am- particularly fascinated by these babas. the idea that someone could be so completely sold out for their faith that they give up all they have and wander the country in search of god and the significance of life? fascinating.

mom and i sat, probably making small talk, on the train platform waiting for our train to roll in, probably also repeating the calls of the chai and cool drink wallas and the hindi language announcements over the loudspeaker. every so often, i'd glance over at the sadhus draped over giant piles of rice sacks and other burlap-wrapped parcels, wondering what sorts of things they'd seen throughout the course of their lives. they'd not-so-casually look in our direction often.

my favorite part of our interaction was not how we seemed as interesting to them as they were to us, but what happened just after. upon hearing our train arrival notice, i stood up and maneuvered my backpack onto my back. several months into this trip, it was already rather heavy. i'd bend a knee, hoist my pack onto my bent leg, turn it so the straps were facing me and put one arm through. then, in a quick motion, i'd stand up straight, scoot the pack from my side to my back, and slide my other arm through the remaining strap. then came the awkward lean-forward-and-hike-the-pack-up-so-i-can-hike-my-salwar-down move, followed by a buckling of the hip belt and a readjusting of my dupatta/ scarf. by the time i had accomplished this fairly routine task this time, i had amassed quite an audience. it made my day when one sadhu nodded his head at me, and then flexed his biceps and made the sort of huff one would expect from a weightlifter, smiling in my direction in acknowledgment of the absurd feat of strength utter ridiculousness i had just managed.  

-originally posted on my personal blob on December 12, 2011

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i don’t often start fights, but when i do, i make them count.

i started volunteering with a family of four from iraq just a few short weeks after their arrival in the united states. figuring there wasn’t much i could cook that they would eat, i invited them to lunch at my neighborhood mediterranean restaurant. at this point, i can’t remember if dad was working or not yet, but if he was, he was supporting the entire family on one income. not wanting to cause them any financial hardship nor make it a big deal, i slipped the waiter my credit card before lunch was even completely served and brought to the table.

fast forward through falafel, hummus, bread, tea to when it came time to pay. my iraqi dad made a move to try and intercept the bill when it arrived and was informed it was already taken care of. enter the shouting.

it’s been 13 years since this happened, so there may not have been shouting, but in my memory there was. he also got up when he shouted, and he was not a small man. i shrunk, we walked out, and i never tried that again.

this scenario has replayed countless times in the intervening years: whether it’s chai, dinner, lavish meals cooked at home (and occasionally delivered to my doorstep), or beautiful gifts schlepped across the world, i have learned to reflect on the privilege i have (that’s what truly makes me uncomfortable, after all) and to accept these things with deep gratitude. sometimes you really just can’t say no: all you can do is slow down, shut your mouth, listen, and learn.

because daniel nayeri says it better than i ever could, i’ll leave you with this:

Aziz only ever weeps when she remembers this story, and never tells it, so I will make up a scene to show what my mother told me, which is that Hassan and the physical had a misunderstanding that led to a bitter feud. 

A truck pulled up in front of the auto parts shop just as Hassan raised his glass of tea. The sugar cube he held between his teeth was sill dry when a man slammed the passenger door of the truck and marched toward the shop. He was shaped like a cashew, pushing bis belly out and his forehead back.

“How can I help you, Doctor?” said Hassan.

Or wait, Maybe it starts even worse, like, “Hello, sir, how can I help you?”

“Doktor,” says the doctor.

“Oh, very sorry. How can I help you, Doktor?”

Wait, no. This isn’t working.

He’s the only doctor in the neighborhoo, so it would be unlikely that Hassan wouldn’t know him.

In fact, straight-to-your-face rudeness isn’t a very Persian thing. It would be more subtle. Like the doctor wouldn’t barge in. He’d look at the little carpet that Aziz had put down in the shop and he’d sneer, but he’d never say the rug was too dirty for him to step on. He’d just smile and say, “Oh, I don’t want to bother you while you dine,” and he’d use a word for “dine “ that mean being a little lazy in the middle of the day. 

Hassan would tariff and say, ‘Please, share some of my wife’s tea,” but the doctor would refuse, not even with a long, drawn-out compliment. He’d just say, “Thank you, but I'm in a great hurry.”

Can you imagine something that rude?

That his furry was somehow more important than a person offering tea. And even worse, his wife’s tea, while his wife is standing right there.

The doctor may as well have spit in Hassan’s face. - Everything Sad is Untrue (pp. 89-91)

• sheer number of siblings your friends have (god bless their mothers)

• siblings lost (god bless their mothers)

• countries that provided shelter and a temporary, shaky sense of home

• extraordinary circumstances where your friends probably should have died but didn’t (again, god bless their mothers)

• how truly difficult it was/ is for them to adjust to life in the USA

• how responsible they feel for family left behind, and how hard they work to do right by them

In the moment that I spotted one of them peeking shyly out, I admit I did feel a wave of relief, having already begun to envision arriving home barefoot, sacrificing my flip flops to the god of Afghan women parties. After that the men really got to work, sifting like mad now that they knew what they were looking for. 

Shouts of joy erupted when the second was found, and I spent the entire drive home smiling that goofy grin of gratefulness. That night, that party, I was the recipient of radical hospitality. That night I was an annexed family member brought in to celebrate with, having already walked with them through grief and suffering. It’s a lovely thing to receive hospitality like this. It’s also lovely to arrive home wearing shoes.

*As an anticipatory note, Awkward Sara did make an appearance at this party, so I shall have to make another entry at some point.

I wonder at her ability to resist. 

She endured timeless incarceration for years. Yet she somehow found a way to creatively resist a system of violence intent on destruction. Further, she shielded her children from the brunt of it. Mind you, the children still suffered horribly. Nightmares were the least of it. I look at her oldest, though, and wonder. How did she support him so that he rose up out of that purgatory maintaining a keen tenderness toward humanity and an assumption of kindness in others? He also came to America on grade level in math. So then, her resistance was in this. She had a ruthless desire to see her kids exit the timeless hell with both a ferocious grip on math as well as a determined desire to see humanity without automatic contempt. I don’t know how she did it. I wonder often at it. She is a wonder to me.

Stories of resilience, of deliverance, of relentless love and sacrifice, are all around us, if we only take the time to listen. It’s taken me years to learn how to listen. In the moments when I can truly abide with our friends, I find pure gold.

Just a few weeks shy of two years ago, I got a series of frantic text messages and emails (many of them, but this is about a specific series): Z, living in Denver as an Afghan former combat interpreter, had a very large family living in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan with Special Immigrant Visas in process:: 17 family members, 3 heads of family all qualified for SIV, all frantically trying to get out before they got rolled up by the Taliban.

We brainstormed all night. That night turned into a month turned into several months. Ratline them out? Wait for the US State Department to replace the passports they’d burned in a literal dumpster fire (protocol, apparently)? Get them on a charter flight? Literally anything at all that would keep them safe??

We waited. Hoped in vain for government action. For a return to normal passport processing, and not having to buy them at inflated rates on the black market.

It became clear that the only way to get these folks out- the 7 closest to the line out the door- was to raise money to help them replace their passports.

That’s where my community came in. In about 6-7 days, we raised (you all donated) the $5,700 US (and more!) they needed to replace all 7 passports. Within two weeks of issue, they were on an airplane headed west.

I’ve met them several times since they arrived, including greeting them at the airport, but it never stops being special to share space and food and tea with them despite our lack of shared language.

I sat last weekend at a “women party” with probably 40 (?) women and their kids, seated on toshak cushions on the floor of their apartment.

“How do you know these families?” people would ask.

They’re (7 of) my Jalalabad 17. I pulled several all-nighters pushing a spreadsheet with their information in front of anyone who would read it. I saw their faces over and over again in tiny passport-sized squares, in proof-of-life photos holding their passports near their faces verifying they are, in fact, alive (it’s a strange thing to see a face and KNOW you know it though you’ve never met before, only to realize later that you recognize them from photos, those beautiful, sad eyes). At one point, I knew everyone’s full names and birthdates. Had their KBL number memorized. But it’s weird to say that to someone at a party, especially when so many people there experienced related trauma, so instead I say, “My community donated money to buy them passports.”

And now I get to do the fun part- dote on babies, listen to stories, share food, celebrate significant moments- all because you helped them go from passport photos of their faces to faces in real life in that apartment.

Thank you all for being part of this story.

I walked alongside that man from halfway around the world, watching with tension as his life hung in a balance. That journey pushed me to ask some really hard questions of myself (ones that, frankly, I should have asked long ago). How am I showing up like this to the people around me? Where am I failing them by not being present or not being intentional or just not seeing them? How can I better care for the friends and family around me, but also how can I let them better care for me? How can I learn from this Afghan’s willingness to be vulnerable in sharing his fears with a virtual stranger?

This I know: There is nothing to lose and everything to gain when we intentionally show up during someone’s most difficult days, willing to open our ears, hearts, emotions, and do what it takes to be fully present. I have learned and am learning to more proactively pay attention, to intentionally reach out, check in, encourage, love on, and abide. I suck at it a lot of the time, getting lost in my lists or getting lost in my overall self. Then I remind myself (again): When I chose to intentionally show up for a stranger across the world, I gained both a brother and a friend. In choosing to suffer alongside, we have also since sat in the mutual joy of their restored lives. I would not have been able to understand joy at that level if I hadn’t entered into his pain. For this and so much more, I am grateful.

For most of my life, I felt like I could really take or leave the love language stuff… except that the more I talk about what I appreciate about my friends and our community, the more I realize that the people in my life show me they care for me by inviting me in and sharing their time.

Over the years, I’ve share more cups tea sitting cross-legged on beautiful, hand-knotted rugs than you’d believe if I had a way to quantify it. Sara and I have had the tremendous fortune of being invited to share in baby showers (shab e shash- say that 3 times fast), citizenship and home dedication ceremonies, birthdays and holidays, engagement henna parties and nikkah ceremonies (as I type this, Sara is off galivanting at a nikkah- I’ve never been!), mourning circles and other moments of distress and confusion. We’ve laughed together. We’ve cried. We’ve shared a lot of tea. I’m grateful.

• A large guitar speaker.

• A garbage bag of used underwear.

• A sleeper-sofa pulled precariously out of the garage of the then-Governor of Colorado (that has its own story).

• pallets and pallets and pallets of diapers all at once (also needs its own entry).

• A potty training toilet, which is not at all unusual, but comes in handy when your three year old has an emergency in The Depot.

• So much furniture at once that one’s garage goes from empty to hardly-able-to-close-the-door (you would have liked to see my husband’s face that day when he got home from work).

• A gorgeous couch from Z Gallery. I snapped a picture of the recipients on that couch and, with permission from the family, that picture ended up in the hands of a former First Lady.

Sometimes we just sat in wonder. Sometimes the wonder was wildly good. The underwear bag? That was a different kind of wonder.

The danger in expressing to an Afghan friend that you like something is that you run the risk of owning that thing 30 minutes later.

I’ve learned a lot about generosity and sacrifice from my friends, but I still have a long way to go when it comes to navigating taarof.

Because of the network, families felt comfortable asking if we could help them find this or that. More times than not, we could. We went through cycles of collection, waves of amassing certain items and then needing to take a breath. Perhaps we wound down when a storage room became stuffed full of extra long twin mattresses or when we would find that someone left a certainly-unasked-for bag of used underwear on our doorstep. Then we would wind back up when a couch from Z Gallery was offered or The Governor called, asking how he could help.

It was a beautiful and overwhelming time.

Certain days, particular moments, seemed to unveil larger themes; what I mean to say is certain encounters hinted at some larger purpose. Perhaps God saying, “Pay attention! Don’t miss this! Today is for you!”

********************************************

She had reached out to me from her new apartment. The flat was good, the move went fine, but there was a strange gap in the kitchen for an extra small washing machine. It was a tiny gap, and had I ever seen a washing machine that small? Hell, no, I hadn’t. I reminded her she was in America, where everything only comes extra large. I smiled to myself as I hung up the phone, for she had already recognized the humor in her ask, and her tinkling laughter told me she understood I wouldn’t be able to find such a thing.

At the same time, less than a half mile away, a woman was crafting a private message. She was getting a new washing machine and wondered whether I had a family that could use her old one. The old one worked perfectly fine, but it was an unusual size. Tiny, in fact. And she just couldn’t deal with this mini washing machine anymore.

I brought the machine to my friend’s apartment, not having any plan of how to get rid of it in case it didn’t fit. Knowing that if it did, this would be the weirdest, strangest alignment of stars I had experienced this side of heaven. And when we slid that puppy in place, pressed the power button, and that old boy started to hum, all we could do is stare at each other. We just stared, wide eyed.

I’ve pondered this moment so many countless times since then. It should go unsaid that I have never had anyone else ask for such a machine since, nor have I had anyone offer such an unusual machine since. Why? Why did the timing of all of this happen just perfectly like this? What was the point? Was it just so the God of the universe could just to watch our unbelievable delight and wonder?

I don’t have the answer but I still revisit that day from time to time. I think that day was a massive encouragement to both my friend and to me. It spoke to her of being seen. Of an acknowledgement that everything about her life was hard, but that this small thing would help. It spoke to her that her dignity mattered in this long, difficult journey.

This day spoke to me that somehow I was in the right lane, doing the right thing, right where I was supposed to be. I was a mess doing it, an awful mess, but I, too, was seen and known and my mess of a heart was slowly edging in the right direction. The message was, “Keep going. You’ll keep messing up, but keep going. It’s important work. It’s necessary, and I want you right here, doing just this. You’ll come out a different person, a better person, a changed person. And when you’re tired, I’ll encourage you with tinkling laughter, warm tea, and tiny washing machines.”