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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Barack Obama
Read between
December 6 - December 10, 2019
“A healthy, dose of guilt never hurt anybody. It’s what civilization was built on, guilt. A highly underrated emotion.�
In her smiling, slightly puzzled face, I saw what all children must see at some point if they are to grow up—their parents� lives revealed to them as separate and apart, reaching out beyond the point of their union or the birth of a child, lives unfurling back to grandparents, great-grandparents, an infinite number of chance meetings, misunderstandings, projected hopes, limited circumstances.
“Make sure he doesn’t get lost again.� Once we were back on the highway, I asked Auma what Zeituni had meant about my getting lost. Auma shrugged. “It’s a common expression here,� she said. “Usually, it means the person hasn’t seen you in a while. ‘You’ve been lost,� they’ll say. Or ‘Don’t get lost.� Sometimes it has a more serious meaning. Let’s say a son or husband moves to the city, or to the West, like our Uncle Omar, in Boston. They promise to return after completing school. They say they’ll send for the family once they get settled. At first they write once a week. Then it’s just once a
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