A few months ago one of my big-hearted friends confided to me, “I really want to bring a Syrian family here”—here being the North Carolina Outer Banks, our home.

 As it so happened, only two days earlier I’d heard a clergyman voice the same desire.

I deeply honor the sentiment behind this. Yes, let’s share our abundance in an open, loving way. Everyone will benefit, us as well as those we help. 

But why would we bring people whose lives have already been ripped wide open to a place where there is no mosque, no Islamic presence, no language spoken but English and a little Spanish, and virtually no ethnic diversity? A place, moreover, where there is a good measure of anti-Islamic sentiment?

These questions have continued to nag at me. So I decided to look into them.

What’s in a name, the young man wanted to know. More specifically, what’s so special about the term “Mom” that he should continue to use it for his entire life—since he was now an adult and on equal footing with his mother?

We were having this conversation in the most unlikely of venues. That afternoon I had decided to quit procrastinating and go renew my driver’s license.

My mother seemed unusually sad on the March morning that Jeff and I left her apartment to drive to New England. The depth of her emotion struck me as odd. We’d visited with her for several days on our way north, and we planned to stop there again on our trip home. “Mom,” I said, “we’ll be back in two weeks, for at least a couple of nights.”

“Oh,” she said, putting on a brave smile. “That’s right. I’ll see you soon.”

Could she really have forgotten? She was doing so well—living without pain, eating well, even playing an occasional hand of bridge with other women in her retirement complex. Still, I drove away feeling unsettled.

When I was a teenager, I occasionally babysat for a couple of girls, Tracy and Kerry Rankin, one carrot top, one white blonde. They had the palest skin I’d ever seen. Mostly I remember their knobby elbows and knees. I couldn’t envision them as adults. We didn’t keep in touch.

A few years ago I got a message from their mother. They were all coming to the Outer Banks for a family reunion. Would I stop by?

When I walked into their rental cottage two gorgeous women, one redhead, one blonde, greeted me with huge, beautiful smiles. My mouth fell open. They were tall and graceful, with glowing skin.

The house rang with the sound of cousins laughing and jumping off bunk beds. Tracy, the redhead, had three children. Kerry had adopted four children from a Russian orphanage—which is the reason for this story.

It’s a tale of dreams dashed, redrawn, and realized.

 A few weeks ago, a car accident in our community took the life of a child. An only child. Now his mother, whom I know through church, is mired in the personal hell through which Jeff and I traveled seven years ago.

Within a few days the mother sent word that she wanted to talk with me. I knew why.