Home is Where the Heart Is, and Family are Those We Care About.

I am mindful tonight of current events.  Between bombs on restaurants and attacks on field hospitals, my heart is broken and seething.  Mixed in with my grief, I also must acknowledge that I have found another home.  It is not a cabin in the woods, or an apartment with heat and hot water.  This one, like so many, is not a physical location, but an idea.  It’s home and it's family.  I am so stricken with the hate and the violence of a handful of people who wish to change their world by ending someone else’s. 

Despite their best efforts though, I can see a bright and vibrant love and compassion.  In response to events like the raid of La Taverna du Liban and the attack on a Red Cross infirmary in Euromaidan, a community united.  True, there are local reactions, but internationally the ex-pat community is also coming together to find their own, to mourn as one, and to support each other. 

As ex-pats past and present we may, at times, be outsiders in the towns where we were born, and we certainly have conflicting loyalties, opinions and traditions, but together we are a family.  Even if you are a cousin that I haven’t met yet, I will likely buy you dinner, share a laugh, and cry with you if that’s what you need. 

So as my heart is once again ripped asunder, I say to you, those who kidnap aide workers, shoot civilians, and bomb school children:  Shame on you.  Those are my siblings, my nieces, nephews, dayzas, babbas and ejes.  We will continue to love each other despite your best efforts.