Seema Jilani is a pediatric hospitalist at Texas Children’s Hospital and has worked in war zones for over twenty years, including on refugee rescue boats off the coast of Libya, in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank, and postwar Bosnia. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, NPR, and the Guardian, among other publications. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has briefed the UN and Senior White House officials. She was accepted into both the Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop and Tin House Writers’ Workshop. Dr. Jilani is a child and grandchild of boat refugees, so this piece is especially close to her heart.