thank you notes (KW)

When a shell exploded across the street from the house we were hiding in and my older brother clutched his bleeding ear and cried out, I am thankful that my mother gathered him up in her arms and pulled him away from the path of a collapsing beam. She also picked up a bag of all the things we owned in the world and, thinking this bag was me, her youngest son, grabbed it by the scruff and ran. I am thankful that my uncle stopped her from turning back around when she realised that in her hands was a bag and not her youngest son. I am thankful that I was there, by her side, in a stranger's arms, as the world became rubble around us. I am thankful to that stranger for pulling me out of that house just before it collapsed. I am thankful to my mother for remembering this event for me and for telling me this story. I am thankful that our family, scattered across the map by the war, eventually became whole in a new country where a doctor would look into my brother's ear and tell my mother and my father that it would only take a small procedure and he'd be able to hear again.

- KW (10/25/2016).