Words that Never Leave You: “They already took everything from me. They don’t get to take the rest of my life.”
Part Thirty-Six in an ongoing series from Hollie's book "Words That Never Leave You: Fifty Pearls of Wisdom and Reflection from Survivors Across the World."
Iraq’s Yazidi women are among the most tenacious and brave I have ever encountered. Despite what ISIS did to them – enslaving thousands as spoils of war and slaughtering many more in the acerbic daylight – many refuse to allow the vestiges of deep trauma and a life now steeped in poverty to plunge them further into despair.
“They already took everything from me,” Hanna, barely twenty-two years old and newly rescued, said stoically, straining her neck toward the stars in the dim light.
Forgiveness, holding ourselves responsible for finding the light, enables us to feel the things we are yet to feel.
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