Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
I picture you calling from a vast and desperate place. Do you spend your days scamming people and wishing that you had stayed, because you didn’t think that it would take this long? I spoke to Brother David; he is soft on you. He forgives you, because it’s you but the others think that you turned your back on God.
‘Our truth is our truth’ Father would say. I’ll never forget the moment when you told me you hated him. There you laid bare your truth. You were always so insistent on being by his side. Making it a competition to be near him, even though you knew I didn’t care for your shared beliefs or strange rituals. I guess we all just want to belong to something.
You told me that you didn’t know that you could do what I do, give to the people without being ‘a religious’. I always thought it was funny how you would communicate. Your words translated from Arabic into English then into broken Khmer. It wouldn’t have mattered if you had known. Brother, I have privilege: my skin, my country, my family. You were born to struggle. Maybe you were doomed from the beginning.