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The Boy Who Tried to Stay
By Mike Odetalla
Fifty-seven years ago, I made one final, desperate attempt to hold on to the world I loved.
I was just a boy when I learned that my family would soon be leaving my beloved homeland of Palestine to begin a new life in America. To the adults, it was a practical decision—one made in search of opportunity and a better future, away from the suffocating Israeli occupation & oppression. But to me, it felt as though my entire world was being torn away.
How could I explain what Palestine meant to a child?
It was not merely a place on a map. It was the hills that encircled our small village of Beit Hanina and served as my endless playground. It was the olive and fruit orchards where I wandered freely beneath the sun. It was the caves hidden among the rocky slopes, the handmade kites dancing in the wind, and the familiar scent of earth after the rain.
It was home.
Unable to imagine life anywhere else, I did the only thing a heartbroken child could think to do: I ran away.
I sought refuge at the home of my beloved Aunt Jameela (Allah yerhamha), whose house rested on the side of the great hill overlooking our village. To me, it was a sanctuary. I believed that if I stayed there, hidden among the hills and within the loving embrace of my aunt, perhaps the inevitable could somehow be delayed—or even stopped altogether.
For one precious night, I allowed myself to believe that I had succeeded.
But childhood dreams are no match for the plans of adults.
The next day, to my profound disappointment, I was gently but firmly returned to my family. Three days later, I boarded an airplane and arrived in Detroit, Michigan.
In the span of a few hours, my world changed forever.
I went from olive groves and stone terraces to concrete and smokestacks. From the quiet rhythms of village life to the noise of traffic and crowded city streets. From a landscape shaped by generations of my ancestors to an unfamiliar urban jungle of steel and asphalt.
To a young boy, it felt like exile.
Yet even as I adapted to this new world, a part of me never left that hillside in Beit Hanina.
It remains there still—in the caves I explored, in the orchards where I played, and in the comforting presence of Aunt Jameela's home perched above the village. In my mind, I can still see that small boy clutching his hopes, convinced that if he hid long enough, he could somehow prevent the loss of everything he cherished.
He was wrong, of course.
But I have never stopped admiring his determination.
And perhaps that is why Palestine has never left me.
Because no matter how many miles separate us, no matter how many years pass, the heart remembers where it first learned to love.
And somewhere deep inside me, that little boy is still running up the hill, still seeking refuge in Aunt Jameela's home, and still believing that home is worth holding onto with all his might.
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Mike Odetalla's newest book- buy a copy, enjoy, savor it... then pass it on to your local library or a child that you know and love
