Family in diaspora

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‘Every day I wake up early and beg God to reunite me with you or at least one of you or one of your children's children. But I know I will die by myself before I see you.’
These were the last sentences I heard via WhatsApp from my mother, who had taken shelter with my brother in a shelter for displaced people in Aleppo after her home was destroyed. Her voice disappeared as the internet connection there was cut off. Only after several days did she send another short message: ‘... I am still alive.’

The war has destroyed all her hopes, just as this war has destroyed dreams of a normal life for many Syrian mothers and fathers. Too many families and children have been torn away from the womb of their birthplace, where life was humane, where they had a dignified existence at school, with their friends, in the neighbourhood, with their neighbours, with their memories and with so much more that they had to miss after the war started and they began their lives in diaspora.
The diaspora is what we have in common, my mother, my brothers and me. We are all refugees now. My brothers and I live scattered across Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands; we have become a globalised family. But we are connected by the worries we have, more about each other than about anything else. Worries that have travelled with us since the war began and since each of us crossed borders in search of the safety that my mother, father and brother lack in Syria. We live every day in worry about their unknown fate. That worry follows us everywhere like a hungry monster that never has enough.
We take from the war only the wretched memories and the constant moves between neighbourhoods, cities and countries with it. I cannot describe the loss of the sense of belonging to each place and the loss of the sense of security there. You belong to a burnt and unsafe country and can no longer find a safe place, having learnt the lesson that you must always remain detached. Caution and your shoes should be your friends always ready to flee. And you must move further away from feeling the warmth of those places to avoid the disease of homesickness. Otherwise, you will break down because you are forced to move away from it.
I recall a saying by Iraqi poet Muzaffar Al-Nawab, who predicted a few years ago that we would become the Jews of this century, scattered and lost in the desert. Now I see the accuracy of his prediction. As relatives and Syrians, we share the experiences of other peoples. Now I feel what the Jews must have felt in their diaspora after World War II. And I also understand the suffering of Palestinians and Armenians and others driven out of their homelands. And I feel the experience of Iraqis who came to my country seeking safety. And I fear that our promised land is a mirage.
We now belong to the club of dispersed peoples as an active member and this time we are at the forefront, but we will not always be the kings of the diaspora remain.