Participant ID: P15
Pseudonym: Amira
Age: 29
Gender: Woman
Occupation: ESL student; part-time childcare worker
Living situation: Shares a 2-bedroom apartment in New Westminster with her sister and her sister's two children
Relevant context: Came to Canada as a refugee from Syria in 2023; permanent resident; husband killed in 2019; no children of her own
Interview date: 2025-12-03
Interview length: 39 minutes (with brief interpreter assistance)
Interviewer: R1
Location: Settlement services office, New Westminster

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I: Thank you for talking with me, Amira. We have an interpreter here if needed at any point. Tell me a little about yourself.

P: Thank you. My English is — getting better, I will try. So I am 29 years old. I came from Aleppo. I came to Canada in November 2023, two years ago. My sister was already here, she came in 2019. I live with her and her children, two boys, six and four. My husband, he — he died in the war, in 2019. We had no children. So I am — I am here, with my sister and her boys, and I am studying English, and I work two days at a daycare. That is my life now.

I: When you hear loneliness, what comes to mind for you?

P: [pause] In Arabic the word is wahda. Wahda. It is a strong word. For me it means — I am the only person from my old life who is here. My sister has been here since before the war. She has — Canadian things. Her children speak English now better than Arabic. My parents are dead. My friends from Aleppo are — some are dead, some are in Turkey, some are in Germany, one is in Sweden. So my old life is scattered all over the world. And I am the only piece of it in this place. That is wahda. That is loneliness for me.

I: That's a heavy answer. How does it feel in your body?

P: I do not sleep well. I have, you know, the nightmares from the war, but also the — the regular sadness sleep, where you wake up tired. I cry sometimes when I am alone in the bathroom. I do not cry in front of my sister or the children. The children do not need that.

I: Is loneliness different from being alone?

P: Yes. I am rarely alone. The apartment is small, four people. The boys are loud. I am almost never alone, physically. But I am very alone in my heart. Because nobody in this apartment knew my husband. Nobody knew my mother. Nobody can talk to me about the bakery on the corner where we lived. The memories live only in my head now. They do not live in any conversation. That is, I think, what wahda is for me. The memories with no place to go.

I: Tell me about a recent example.

P: Last week. The anniversary of when our home was destroyed. I did not tell anyone what day it was. My sister did not remember — she was not living there at that point, why would she remember. I went to my English class, I went to work, I came home, I cooked, I helped the boys with homework, I went to bed. The whole day I was alone with the memory of that day and there was nobody to say anything. The day passed. Nobody knew. That is — that was very hard.

I: Have you found things that help?

P: Some things. My settlement worker, Fatima, she is Lebanese, she speaks Arabic, she is — she is becoming a friend. I look forward to my appointments with her even when there is nothing to talk about. There is also a group for Syrian women in Surrey, I take the bus sometimes, we eat together and the children play. That is good for me. And — this is small — I cook the food from home. I make my mother's recipes. The cooking is, in a way, my prayer to her.

I: What didn't work?

P: At first I tried to make Canadian friends. People in my English class. They were nice but they did not — they could not — there was too much they did not know about me to ask the right questions, and I did not want to explain everything. To explain everything is to live through it again. So I gave up trying to make Canadian friends and I felt bad about that for a long time. Maybe later. Not yet.

I: Have you sought professional help?

P: There is a program for refugee mental health, I have started, I see a counsellor with an Arabic interpreter once every three weeks. She is very kind. We work on the — what is the word — the trauma, but also the wahda, the loneliness. She told me that for refugees, loneliness and trauma are sometimes the same thing. I think she is right.

I: What does your loneliness tell you?

P: That my old life is over. That I need to build a new one, but slowly. That I cannot rush this. I am 29 years old and I have already lived three lives, and now I am starting a fourth, and I cannot expect the fourth life to feel like the first one did. That is what the wahda is teaching me. To accept the new shape.

I: Do you think of yourself as a lonely person?

P: I think of myself as a person who has lost very much and is rebuilding. The loneliness is part of the rebuilding. Maybe in five years I will be different. I hope so.

I: Anything that helped that surprised you?

P: The children. My sister's children. The little one, Khaled, he climbs on me every evening when I get home and asks me to read to him in Arabic. He is the one who insists on Arabic, his mother lets him use English at home. He wants the Arabic books. And reading to him is — it is a thread to my old life. He is keeping the language alive in our house and he does not know that is what he is doing. He is four. But he is a small bridge.

I: If you could change one thing about how society handles loneliness?

P: I would want — I would want refugee loneliness to be understood as a specific kind. Many newcomers are alone in a particular way that is not just being new. We have lost not only our country but our people, sometimes our children, our homes, our religion-spaces. The loneliness is many lonelinesses. I think Canada does some things well. But more would be good.

I: Anything I haven't asked?

P: Just — I am grateful to be here. Canada gave me safety. The loneliness is the price of the safety. I would not trade it. But both things are true. Both. Thank you for asking. Many people do not ask.