Lian
“Lian, Lian, Lian..” I muttered to myself, pacing around the echo waiting area at the Wolfson Medical Center. It was time for me to interview children and their families who had come from either Gaza or the West Bank for follow up appointments months or years after their heart surgeries. I found seven year old Lian, smiling, shy and standing very close to her mother on a bench outside an exam room. She wore light pink circle framed glasses and bright purple clothes. As I sat down and began speaking with her mother she inched closer and closer toward me. Soon she was shoved right up next to me, watching me write her mother’s responses in English on my pad of paper. “How are you?” I said in Arabic, “How are YOU?”, she replied. As her smile grew bigger and bigger, mine did as well. “Tisk!”, she said, flicking my curls from the center of my face. “Tisk!”, I replied, doing the same. She swayed left and right, belly pushed forward, a big toothy grin stamped on her face.
*Photograph taken by Meredith Somers
As I began to move around to visit with the other children and their families I noticed Lian running around with 8 year old Jihad, another boy from the same city who was also visiting Wolfson for a follow up after surgery. It surprised me to see how quickly they ran after one another, their agility and excitement. After all, these were kids who not more than a year or two ago were visiting Israel to receive open heart surgery. If one did not know this fact it would be impossible to tell by simply viewing their behavior. The hospital clown arrived shortly thereafter to visit and play with the children. Lian and Jihad jumped and shrieked with excitement as the hospital clown fell all the way into a full gymnast’s splits.
*Photograph taken by Meredith Somers
When I finished with my interviews and was preparing to leave, I went up to Lian and Jihad to say goodbye in Arabic, a phrase I just recently aquired. “Goodbye!”, I said quietly, as the children were enraptured by the clown balancing on top of a waiting room chair. “Goodbye!”, Lian shouted, throwing her arms open she gave me a tight hug around the waist.
