The Emotion of a Simple Gesture

Just before I left to come to Serbia, my husband and I walked to a nearby grocery store. As we passed someone on the sidewalk, I moved ahead of my husband to allow room for the other person to pass. My husband put his hand on my back, a way to keep a connection even if we no longer walked side-by-side. Just a simple, but loving, gesture. Today, I saw a man do the same thing to his wife and in the circumstances it broke my heart.

Today was my first day in the field witnessing the refugee crisis in Europe firsthand. Yesterday, we arrived to the news that Hungary was closing its borders. This morning, we heard that Kanjiza where World Vision has been distributing relief supplies to refugees was very empty. Everyone had moved toward the border to try to get across.

We headed to the border and confusion reigned. People were crowded at a border crossing and then suddenly they were marching away from the gate. They walked about 200 yards, and a few began cutting through a narrow pathway in a field, ducked under a wire fence, and headed for a different border entrance. 

We continued down the main road and stumbled upon a path through an orchard where ripe apples practically dripped from the trees. The picturesque and peaceful scene felt incongruous with the mass of humanity we just witnessed wandering from place to place, unsure what to do next.

At the end of the road, we reached the main highway connecting Serbia and Hungary. There, Serbian police told us we could go no farther. It was there we saw a young Syrian man, maybe in his early 30s. Beside him, his wife stood holding their 8-month-old infant girl. They had traveled all the way from Damascus. 

Come with us, we told him. We can show you where most of the people were walking. He hesitated, looking at the fence to the apple orchard. Was this a place where they would be detained or fenced in, he asked. Would someone be waiting at the other end of this road demanding money to take them a little farther toward their destination? We are not rich, he told us. We don’t travel in a big group. The three traveled with a few new friends from Aleppo who they’d met along the way.

We walked just a little way with them, not even getting their names because so many Syrian refugees are reluctant to give that information. Still, he did tell us that they came because he wanted a better life for his daughter, a chance for her to be educated—and a European country, he thought, offered that opportunity.

When we reached the road, they paused a moment for me to take a family photo. Then they crossed the road and headed toward the next step in their long journey. As they walked along the roadside, he put his hand on his wife’s back, and the familiarity of that gesture brought tears to my eyes. The pressure of his hand seemed to convey, “We’ll get through this. I’ve got your back. Don’t worry.”

And then they were swallowed up into the mass of refugees: gone.