What I Know For Sure

I’m in the aftermath of reading Doaa’s tragic recount of her experience in the Syrian war in Melissa Flemming’s A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea, and Oprah Winfrey’s What I Know For Sure, and I am shaken to my roots. The very foundation of truth that drives me every day is called to question. What Do I know for sure?

I calculate I am only a year younger than Doaa but cannot help to ask myself if I could ever be as strong as she was if the situation called for it. Would I hold on to that ring? Or let go with those young lives weighing down on me?

More so, with the budding unrest in Nigeria that no one seems to be paying particular attention to, I cannot ease the foreboding from my bones. We may never be able to compare with the struggle of the six million Syrian refugees and over twelve million Internally Displaced People.

But what I know for sure is that a fire kindles in the bowels of Nigeria and it is only a matter of time before the smoke spreads. Where will the giants seek refuge?