Dear daughter,

With each passing day you grow a little taller, you toddle a little faster, you babble a little more. Your fears are few (and make no sense): you’ll fly off the stairs and you have no concept of the edge of a bed, but a threshold from one room to the next makes you stop dead to carefully tiptoe over, holding on to the door frame for dear life.

My family lived in a village outside of Dohuk, Iraq (Kurdistan) in the fall of 1988. I was 1.5 and my brother was 3 weeks old. Neighboring villagers rushed to come tell us that Sadamm and his army was on the move and we needed to leave. We left with the clothes on our backs and fear in our hearts. The journey on foot over the treacherous mountains seemed to take forever. We finally made it across the border to Turkey and settled in a refugee camp in Mardin, Turkey.

In high school I knew I wanted to be a pastor. I lived for church. I yearned for church. It was the place I wanted to be at all times. I tried to “save” my friends. I was worried about my eternal salvation and of course, like any good Christian girl, I was worried about my virginity.

I had sex for the first time at 18. I was one of the last of my friends to cash in their v-card, and it was something that I was embarrassed by and worried unnecessarily about. I had this twisted idea in my head that because I held onto it longer than most people that it was somehow correlated with my self worth.

During high school I was scrupulous in my pursuit of God. Enchanted by the idea of saving myself for someone special and keeping myself pure, I devoured books like “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and wore shirts with catchy slogans like “Modest is Hottest.” My friends and I created accountability groups where we confessed unholy thoughts we had about romantic interests (which we knew would never come into fruition because our crushes were people we merely admired from afar).

My drapes may speak to you and you may judge me upon your field of vision.

My build of human body may bewilder you, but only from a distance or a glance.

Time.

Day after day.

Night after night.

My father suffered from alcoholism. As a result, we all suffered. I was three-and-a-half years old when my parents’ divorce was final. My baby sister was still an infant. While some may believe toddlers won’t remember, I assure you, that is a myth.

So I guess my change of heart could be summed up as this:  that of an adoring, unconditional love to one of hate, and finally sympathy and distance.  I guess some stories are incapable of having a happy ending for everyone.