A recurring dream that I’ve had for the last several years: My grandmother, a Syrian refugee who spent the last 15 years of her life in the grips of progressive dementia, shows me an attic accessible through a crawlspace in her bedroom closet. It contains a trove of books, journals, letters, and photographs from our family in Syria—everything I could possibly want to know about why and how her family left, and who among them remains. But, just as I’m shown the attic, I have to leave and I can never go back.
The Right Questions
An Interview with Mary Kouyoumdjian
