Migration Stories
Melda Sherman – Arttmodernmiami
Migration…
Is it truly a state of being in between?
For many years, I have been writing about migration. During this time, I have spoken with hundreds of people and conducted countless interviews. While writing my book Migratory Birds, I did not only look at the stories of today, but also at migration narratives that reach back hundreds of years.
And I realized something quite striking:
Times change.
Countries change.
But emotions do not.
Loss…
Longing…
Fear…
Excitement…
People who move from one place to another have been experiencing the same emotions for thousands of years.
The stories I heard were so different from one another. Even though the emotions were the same, no life resembled another. Every migration story is like a fingerprint, completely unique.
For this reason, I decided to share some of the stories I have been preparing for my new book in this column. The names of people and cities have been changed.
I met Süreyya when I was living in New York.
She was cheerful, lively, and loved to talk. Intelligent, knowledgeable, and refined. I never asked her age, but she was probably in her sixties. But sometimes you don’t need to know a person’s age to understand them. Because some people’s stories are written on their faces.
Süreyya was like that. She loved telling stories. And people who truly have a story to tell are never easy to silence.
Süreyya had grown up in one of the world’s large and well-known cities, the daughter of a respected and prosperous family. She was the beautiful young daughter of a wealthy doctor and a protective mother who raised her with great care. She built a life that matched her family’s expectations. She married a doctor. From the outside, everything looked perfect. But some lives are like shop windows.They shine brightly… yet behind the glass, there is darkness. Over time, her husband turned into a man who was abusive and narcissistic. They had a child together. Around those same years, Süreyya’s strong father and protective mother both passed away. Now there was no one left to protect her.
She was a pharmacist; educated and capable. Yet despite all this, she felt increasingly alone inside a life that others admired from the outside. Eventually, she decided to divorce.The child stayed with her. He was only nine years old.
For many people, the story would end here. But in some lives, the real story begins exactly at this point. Because sometimes a woman rebuilds her life by doing just one thing:
She packs a suitcase.She makes an optimistic plan. She is brave, because she also has some financial security. And she gets on a plane. But she is not alone.Her child is with her, as well as a man she once knew from her university years.
That is how Süreyya’s journey to America began. But not everyone who comes to America begins a new life. Some people simply bring the shadow of their old lives with them.
Süreyya’s story, however, was far more complicated than I had imagined. And there is one sentence she told me that I have never forgotten:
“Sometimes a person doesn’t migrate from a country… but from their own life.”
Süreyya’s real and extraordinary story in America
begins in the next article.
— To be continued —
Melda Sherman
www.meldasherman.com
Instagram: @melssherman
Facebook: Melda Sherman
