One cold night in Baghdad, Iraq in October 2006, my whole family was together in one house, eating together. It was a religious holiday called Eid in arabic. It happens twice a year. Once after we fast for one month, and then again after a few months fasting. In our tradition all of our family members have to be present. All of my family were laughing and happy being together. We ate a lot of food and also we spent the whole day together talking about what happened since we last saw each other. There were a lot of people in one house, we also played games and I got to see my cousins. They used to visit us.
We had arabic style rice with chicken and other traditional foods like Dolma, a dish consisting of ingredients meat and spiced rice wrapped in vine or cabbage
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All the children were playing outside including me. I had a lot of fun playing with my cousins. After that I don’t recall having another big meal with the whole family present. After what happened to us.
When my uncles got kidnapped in their store while my dad was present, seeing everything and was close to the front door, he had no choice, but to walk out of the store. He had nightmares at night.
That's when everything started to fall apart. That is when everyone started drifting apart and went everywhere. Me, my dad, Mom, and my siblings went to Syria with my grandpa (Mom’s father). Other family members went to other countries and some stayed in Iraq. We didn’t have much contact with them. After living in Syria for two and a half years we came to the United States. We lost touch with our family members. We would talk only once a year or so. I just wish everything could go back to how it was before. In Eid it was the warmest setting because we were together without worries and sadness. I miss those times. Just the thought of no one missing, or no one kidnapped, or no one