Life before we had to leave Iraq, before the war, was pretty good. My dad had a really good job, and he made good money. He worked for the United Nations as a forklift driver, he would stack food into trucks to be delivered to refugees. We had to leave our wealth, our house and most importantly, friends and family, just because of a threat. My dad was getting phone calls, telling him to leave his job. At first, he ignored the threats. All of a sudden I was being chased by kidnappers, but luckily, I made it home. That’s when we had to leave.
The morning that we left Iraq, it was very emotional for my dad and also for my grandpa. My uncles had already left Iraq. My dad was my grandpa’s only hope. But now we had to go too. The decision was already made for our safety. We left to Syria. Now we fall in the refugees spot to be helped by the United Nations. After a year, my grandpa died, because he had no one to take care of him. We got accepted to Canada after 5 years.
My dad got a job in a factory as a labourer. It was a hard job for him, but he never complained. I also worked there too, for one summer. When metal is painted, it has to dry – so there were ovens. I hated it. My dad worked there for a year and two months. One day He came to the house – he was mad. He didn’t want to tell us why. We found out that his back was hurting. He couldn’t do the work. They fired him.
I’ve always seen my dad as the backbone of the house – you look at him now, he can’t work, he can’t do stuff as he used to do them. It hurts me that people look at him as weak “disable”. But actually he’s the strongest. He left everything back in Iraq just for us. I honestly don’t care how hard it gets, my goal is to be a successful filmmaker – to be shooting action movies in Hollywood. Bring happiness to the family .I want to stop the timeline of worrying about money – and just from now on, I want to show them best times and make them proud of me.