Dear Yano,

Dear Yano,

I miss you so much.

Pretty sure not an hour goes by that I don’t think of you or am reminded of you.

When I snap my fingers, I think of you trying to snap your fingers and looking at me with your big beautiful widened eyes in amazement when you succeeded. You knew I would share in your joy. That could be the synopsis of our time together. JOY.

I really can’t believe you are gone. I also really can’t believe I got to meet you.

How did I get such a gift as to meet Yano Ali Mohammad from Kurdistan?

How amazing it would have been to see you grow up. See you go to school. Face-time across nations and meet up in Iraq.

But that wasn’t the story God had written out before the foundations of the world. He knew we would get you for five years, three months and nine days.

This was the last video I sent you on November 15, 2021 while you were conscious, the day before you had surgery.

And this was the last video I got from you on November 12th, 2021.

I miss everything about you Yano.

I’m sad I won’t be getting any more pictures or videos of you from your mom. I loved how we send videos and voice messages back and forth to each other after I left Israel.

Here are some of my favorite:

And then of course the videos we had together in Israel:

I had prayed, before coming to get you in Iraq, that I would know what it meant to be chosen. I was studying the Bible with my nursing friends and read Ephesians 1:4 that says “just as [in His love] He chose us in Christ [actually selected us for Himself as His own] before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy [that is, consecrated, set apart for Him, purpose-driven] and blameless in His sight. In love”

Yano, you were how Jesus showed me what it means to be chosen. He showed me from how much you loved me. He showed me from how much I loved you. My love for you, that He gave me, wasn’t contingent on anything. I just loved you. We couldn’t even speak the same language, but it didn’t matter. We loved each other.

You are hands down my favorite part of 2021 and my deepest grief of 2021. My joy was to know you and my pain was leaving you in Israel and then when you died. I am thankful I loved you hard while I got you. I am thankful that God gave me no clues at all that I would lose you. For that I soaked up every moment with exceeding joy.

Yano, I don’t know what all God is doing as a result of meeting you, but I am so thankful I got to be with your family after you died. I love your mom so much. I am so glad I got to meet your baby brother Mohammad. I am so thankful I got to meet your grandpa that you Face-timed every day. How me and him wept together over your death.

I will go back and see your mom, Yano. She has already asked when I am coming back. I love her. I love your whole family now.

You could never be replaced and that is where the pain comes in. Yano, you are a gift. I am thankful for all the memories I have with you that are only etched in my mind, that weren’t recorded.

Love you forever.

Mother Teresa, as you called me.