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An Old Traditional Belief Rooted Within The Arab Culture Essay

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Keeping with an old traditional belief rooted in our Arab culture, my parents believe that one embodies the name they are given. I was born only 4 years after they left our country of Palestine, a year when the country was just coming out of the first Intifada, or uprising. They fittingly named me Salam, the literal translation of peace in Arabic, but more deeply a peace that is just, full of harmlessness and safety, void of evil and from faults, a peace that is comforting. Sitting in the doctor’s office, reflecting upon the hand that life had dealt me over the past year, I felt no sense of the word peace, and I definitely did not embody salam. Hands in my lap, I stared down at my feet as I uncomfortably shuffled around on the doctor’s chair that was covered in rough parchment-like paper. I glanced up at the inside of my elbow, a mesmerizing blend of green and purple, tender with the freshness of a needle prick from just days before, where I had watched tentatively as my velvety red blood drained out of me and filled up 9 testing tubes. I checked my phone; 30 minutes ago I had been told just 15 more minutes. Yet, here I was, still alone in the too-brightly-lit room, all by myself, waiting. I lifted my clammy hands from my lap and suddenly the anxiousness I had been trying to drown in the artificial sea of cool, calm, and collectedness came crashing down on me. The truth is, I didn’t know if I could handle anymore. The year had already cast a relentless storm cloud over

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