The air was chill and dry. Adnan, 12 and his sister Yana, barely 7, skipped happily to the market for some grains to bring back to their mother at home before Adnan would walk to school alone. The loosely slung Hello Kitty backpack they shared flopped side to side on Adnan’s shoulders amidst their laughter and play. Yana kept looking at the colorful bracelet her mother had made the night before and gifted to her as they were leaving early that morning.

They neared the market, still skipping and prancing about. Yana tripped and fell at the feet of a man carrying a large burlap sack over his left shoulder. “Pay attention!” he remarked with a stoic expression on his face, clearly focused on his task. Yana scrambled to her feet and ran to her brothers side, clutching his right arm. The sounds of the city were growing louder. She looked up at him with wide, bright blue eyes, her rust-brown hair falling to one side. “you need to be careful” said Adnan. “It is busy here.”

The two strode up to a stand where a man was busily filling the orders of a half dozen or so. Teenagers all the way up to the elderly looking to fill their sacks and move on to their next errand or return home. Yana was overwhelmed and so was Adnan, but he had been to the market many times with his father. But few times on his own. Despite his trepidation, he asserted himself to be served. He put his hand up “five.” The vendor saw his hand and grabbed the shoulder of a boy not much older than Adnan and pointed to the two young ones standing amongst the bustling crowd. It was just business for the owner of the stand. For his helper it was opportunity. He filled a small burlap sack, no more than a liter or two. He held out the sack and an empty hand palm up gesturing for the money. Adnan and the boy made the exchange. “I gave you a little extra.” Said the boy smiling. Adnan smiled back as he turned to leave. Yana gave a quick wave and the two of them departed for home.

The two rounded the corner to see their mother batting out a dusty rug hanging from a line. Yana ran to the embrace of her mother’s arms. Happy to be home and safe from the commotion of the city. Adnan handed off the sack of grains, feeling accomplished. He did good. In one motion, his mother Rima took the sack and spun him around by the shoulders. “Now hurry along to school! You won’t get anywhere being on time!” He was already late. He turned around and looked at his sister. “Be good and help mother today!” She nodded daintily in response. She was so cute. He loved his sister. He was her brother. Her protector. He smiled and hurried along…

Adnan was passing a column of livestock on a main road. The city was loud. Cars were honking, moto’s buzzing all around, and always people yelling back and forth negotiating and exchanging wares. A rumble began to rise above the noise of the city. As it grew stronger, the city quieted. Then the ground shook accompanied by the most violent crash Adnan had ever heard. “It’s happening again.” Fear and despair overtook him as chaos erupted in the city people yelling, women and children were screaming. Adnan realized he was calling for his mother. The crash, less than a kilometer away threw smoke and debris into the air. Another roar. Another crash. Bits of rubble fell from the sky into the streets. Adnan ducked and pressed himself against a wall in a small alley way between buildings. Everybody was running in one direction. Trying to escape the death that fell from the sky.

This wasn’t the first time terror struck the city of Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world. Protests began in August, 2011. Since then, violence continued to escalate. Cars exploded in the streets killing many and wounding more. Protestors pushed against the government by punishing the people and police officers of the city. The government was pushing back harder, crushing city blocks and residential neighborhoods. Adnan and his family had tried to go about their lives the best they could, hoping that the violence would never reach them. Now it was all too near. Now, planes swept over the city dropping judgement where it didn’t belong.

Adnan picked up and ran for his life, following the crowd. What else could he do? Only run. Run and hope that the bombs that fell stayed far away from his home. He had forgotten his pencil. He pictured his mother and sister standing outside their home as he had left them twenty minutes ago.

The civil war that raged touched all that lived in the city. Those who wanted normal lives, happy lives, where they could go to school and read and laugh and love, had it stripped from beneath their feet for a cause they knew not.

Adnan raced through the streets. The crowd was thinning as more and more people ducked into the perceived safety of various concrete buildings. The blast had been so powerful many windows were shattered, glass strewn about. Men were peering out of shops and doorways with fearful eyes. Goats and other livestock ran loosely through the streets, just as afraid ad confused as the people were. For they were victims as well.

Hours passed without another sign of the jet. Things were safe for now. Or so the city hoped. People emerged from the concealment of their hiding places as others tried to make sense of things. For Adnan, this had been far too close. He was not going to school today he quickly made his way home. Still shaking.

As he got nearer, the air felt tense. There were less people there, and those who remained where stricken with blank faces. A man limped by, expressionless and bloodied. Adnan’s heart sank and his mind raced. His pace quickened. His breathing seemed to stop. A hot feeling burned in the back of his head. Then, things were unrecognizable. He thought he had gone the right way. He never got lost on his way home, where he had lived his entire life. Now there was rubble and ash and debris everywhere. Where was the shoe store? Where was Moonif and his café? People were digging through the featureless piles of what were once shops and homes.

No, he was not lost. Adnan was exactly where he thought he was. He began to realize it. A cry erupted from his tight throat. Hysteria set in as he ran to join a few others digging. He knew not what he would find. He frantically began clawing at the rubble. Pieces of concrete sizing from dust to boulders made it impossible to make progress. Spikes of rebar protruded every which way, holding blocks of concrete suspended in the air like some sick modern art. But this was not art. Art is meant to create, not destroy. Time stood still.

Adnans hands bled. His heart sank deeper. He looked side left, people a woman was slumped in the dirt. Every essence of her being had left. She was despair. He looked right and noticed his mother’s rug poking out from the rubble. He got up. A strange energy ignited in him, for he recognized something. He ran over to the site that was the threshold of his home, now a hill of waste. Then something caught his eye. He cried.

He cried and cried, until he felt as though his own life was leaving him. “Mama! Yana!” On his knees he reached down and picked up his sister’s arm and removed the bracelet. It was all he had left of his mother and sister.

Utter despair had turned to agony. Numerous more bombings had happened in the weeks that followed. It had been three weeks since his family was ripped from Adnan. He walked with hundreds of others in search of refuge from the civil war that devastated Syria. A Trail of Tears of modern times. Adnan held onto the bracelet his sister had worn. To his right he noticed a familiar face. The boy who gave him the grain at the market. A small glimmer of hope shined in Adnans heart. He went over to the boy who looked up. But no smiles were exchanged. No words were had. Only recognition. For, there was too much loss and grief for anything to merit any sign of happiness. Devastation had befallen these people.

There was nowhere to go except for where they were going, and where that was, they did not know. They wore the same dusted clothes. Many with the blood of others dried and encrusted into the fibers. Death took those who died in the rubble and those who wandered. Their spirits were utterly crushed. They were no longer people. Only statistics that we read about from our iPhones. Soulless shells of people adrift with no home. Nowhere they belong. Refugee.

But people are strong. Those with life have the power to breathe new life into others who have lost theirs. By extending our love through outstretched arms can we lift up the downtrodden, the beaten and the oppressed. We are one people living in this world. We must make people our race, life our religion and love our currency, lest we continue to destroy ourselves.

Adnan is in school again, learning algebra and English. He is learning to make friends. Refugee, no longer.

***Syrian Refugees are the first victims of one of the many conflicts in the Middle East. They represent not just themselves but all who have suffered the horrors of war. Those who have been murdered, uprooted from their homes and tormented by fear and hopelessness. Don’t pray for these people. It is a copout and it does absolutely nothing unless you act. Change needs to be in the hearts of everyone in order for it to happen. Let us rise to a higher level of existence and fundamentally change the world into what it should be: a safe place for children to grow up in and learn and inherit the world after us.***