Acknowledgements

For the ones who walked beside me

A book is rarely the work of one person, even when only one name appears on the cover. These letters carry the fingerprints of many.

To the colleagues and friends who taught me what care looks like in the field, in the office, and in the long hours between — thank you. Many of you appear in these pages under a single letter, and you know who you are. The privacy is mine. The gratitude is yours.

To the people I have served, who let me into the smallest hours of their hardest days — you taught me more than any institution ever did. This book is a small attempt to give back what you trusted me to carry.

To my family, who endured my absences — there are no words.

And to you, the reader who picked up this small book and stayed for the candle: thank you. The light continues because you made room for it.

— Ali Al Mokdad