“Patience is Beautiful”: A Legacy of Waiting

Image from Unsplash by Levi Meir Clancy

Growing up, my parents never sat me down to teach patience — they lived it.

Quietly.

Fiercely.

Beautifully.

Through them, I learned that waiting isn’t passive — it’s an act of faith, resistance, and hope.

Our family’s life was shaped by it. To return to Gaza, we navigated a maze of embassies, refugee documents, visa denials, fees paid, consulates, and paperwork just to prove we existed.

Flights had to be direct. Layovers were forbidden. One denied visa could cancel years of effort.

Still we waited. We showed up. We believed.

My grandparents waited to return to their home after 1948. Then again after 1967.

As another example (and there are dozens more) one of my uncles was stranded in Syria for seven years.

Cousins, neighbors, and friends came and went in decades-long intervals — victims of borders, checkpoints, and fragile refugee papers.

But the one that shaped me most was the one I endured in silence.

From 1991 to 2009, I reported to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) almost every month for nearly 18 years.