Losses of the Past

After reading this week’s assigned essays within Cheryl Strayed’s “The Best of American Travel Writing 2018” of “Goodbye, My Brother” by Elliot Ackerman and “Hope and Home” by Rabih Alameddine, I have noticed that both share a key pattern. Within both essays, a theme is shared of loss that had occurred in the past. Within “Goodbye, My Brother” this is featured from Ackerman’s return to Fallujah where he had fought during the Iraq War and lost a close friend of his. This had left a considerable impact upon him as he decided to return to the city after it had been liberated from ISIS. This impact that this traumatic event can be seen from his reaction after trying to use his friend’s line to describe “that life was like chess” and was rebuffed by his friend who stated “Life is backgammon. The game takes skill, but it also takes luck.” (Ackerman/Strayed 11). On this, Ackermann reflected “As he said this, I thought about the bullet that found Dan. I often think about the bullet that never found me” (Ackerman/Strayed 11). The events that Ackerman experienced within this city during the battle had left a significant impact upon his life and because of this, he felt the need to return to somewhat confront his past. However, within “Hope and Home” by Rabih Alameddine the theme of the losses of the past are shown in a completely different way. In this essay, the losses that occurred in the past are not from Alameddine’s own life, but rather of the refugees that he had interviewed and met, mainly within in Lebanon. Of these refugees that had traveled to Lebanon, many had lost everything they owned due to fleeing from the horrors that had plagued their home counties, notably that of terrorist groups were one of such horrors. This idea can be greatly seen through one of the interactions that Alameddine had with a man named Ahmad M. and his wife who he had met “a number of times” (Alameddine/Strayed 26). In this interaction, it is stated “”Hope?” Ahmad said. “I knew we couldn’t return the minute the war started.” “We lost everything,” his wife said” (Alameddine/Strayed 26). Thus, while Alamadine did not experience the loss of the past shown within this essay directly, he did experience it through interviewing and meeting refugees that had and witnessing the effects that this trauma caused to those that had directly experienced this. As Alameddine states on this, “My traumas involve nothing more than a bad pedicure. I end up interviewing refugees because even though I’m useless, even though there’s nothing that I can do, doing nothing is a crime” (Alameddine/Strayed 22). In the end, although both essays are different, as one features a personal loss of the past due to war and the other features the loss of the past that was experienced by others, both stories certainly share a theme of losses that occurred in the past that were caused by trauma and turmoil.