When Your First Breath Is Full of Dust

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Little Baby, I saw you on the news. You were in the first video of your brand-new life, with a gray look about you and a sag to your body like any newborn carried from womb to clean-up, except you draped your uncle’s hands like a listless ragdoll. He was in a rush, getting you to safety from the earthquake’s rubble, perhaps so he could return to your mother.

The world saw you, Baby, shocked that such a thing could ever happen. What are the chances? A birth at the very moment of an earthquake — or in the moments after. Yet, hours had already ticked by since the tragic event, so plenty could be happening under all that concrete misfortune — birth, pain, desperate begging, death.

Your mother didn’t make it, little one, and it will be a long time before you understand that. In the meantime, you’ll be tended to as a national — international — symbol of tomorrow rather than yesterday. You won’t know this. You will only be held in the near term by a community transformed by trauma. The words you hear might not be calm or happy for a long while, Child.

Water and gloves

When my family and I lived in Istanbul, Turkey in 2004, I thought it was an adventure of a lifetime — and it was — until one day I took an earthquake preparedness workshop given by the international school my sons attended. I had no idea earthquakes were a thing in Turkey.

I learned about the Anatolian Plate then, as you just have, but I did it by listening to a lecture rather than being born directly into its convulsion. The thing they told me, sitting there in the classroom with the other expat parents, was that our best — and only — recourse after an earthquake in Istanbul would be to have access to three important things: water, a shovel, and leather gloves. Water for drinking. The shovel and leather gloves for pulling loved ones from the rubble.

The lecturer had an “I hate to tell you this” tone when he explained Turkey would be slow to handle the aftermath of such a catastrophe back then. We learned about the grim predictions of pancaked buildings then. I sat there and thought, Ruh-roh.

It hasn’t happened yet, but Istanbul expects a “big one” at some point. And that’s not something anyone wants to hear right now.

My friend texted me the other day:

You were so right about the earthquake in Turkey.

Last year I was her travel advisor as she arranged for a layover in Istanbul between international flights. See Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar. Don’t be there for an earthquake.

All these years, I’ve kept the folks I befriended in Istanbul tucked in between a pair of my tightly crossed fingers. I periodically remember that I want them to survive a terrible earthquake if it should strike, then I uselessly plead with the Universe to make it so, then I go back to forgetting. Then your earthquake happens, Baby, and I remember again.

Selflessness

Before my family and I moved back to the States, we took a car trip to southern Turkey, not too far from where your earthquake hit. One of my lasting memories of that trip was how at midnight in the middle of nowhere folks came out of the woodwork to rescue our family from our broken-down car.

I spoke with them in my newbie American-accented Turkish. They replied graciously. I knew I could never explain to them how grateful I was for their kindness. They saw us for a few hours before we were off to catch a train home. That memory continues to teach me about selflessness.

Little child, all this talk of Turkey, but you live in Syria, where I’ll never go. Despite the vast differences swimming in the socio-political currents, the bodies of the living are the same. We eat, breathe, and bear children with the assumption we’ll live long enough to hold them.

I study photos of your face in my newsfeed. You stare intently from your incubator with a bruised forehead. A newborn baby with bruises is a counterintuitive image. I see there is a warning sign on the bottom corner of your incubator. It says “Gefahr”, which is German for “danger”. It urges neonatal staff to take care. I think how ironic that this word is next to you, Baby. You must be the world’s youngest expert on danger.

The youngest expert

Little One, when you arrived here, did you wonder why anyone would want to leave the warmth and love of a womb to see such a cold, lonely place? I hope someone is nuzzling your battered face right now, showing you this place is not as bad as you feared.

At the earliest age imaginable — an hour or two — you learned about hope. Maybe one day you’ll be the teacher of all teachers on that very thing. Maybe you’ll find a way to pull something good from the rubble of your beginnings.

I don’t know how you’ll do that, or when, but if you do, I think you’ll have the inner fortitude and grace to become a force for good in the world. I hope you do because the world could use that, now and always.

Welcome, dear one. As unimaginable as your future seems to those of us looking on from afar, just know we’re all rooting for you.