JORA LUMEZI

Between Their Gods

I come from both – Muslim and Christian.
my mother’s side Muslim.
my father’s side Christian.
no one really religious,
but everyone believing in something soft and quiet.

we celebrated everything.
Ramadan at my mom’s
food that healed moods,
sweets that knocked you out,
hugs that smelled like sugar and smoke.

Christmas with my dad’s
too much rakia,
too many toasts,
someone always crying by dessert.

as a kid I sang in the church choir,
my family clapping too loud in the back.
then I’d come home
and watch my grandma pray on her rug,
her whispers steady,
her hands gentle.
I didn’t understand the words,
but I understood her.

I went to church for one grandma,
stood beside the other for prayer.
I never chose between them.
I didn’t need to.

somewhere between their gods
I learned what actually matters
kindness, patience, care,
and a table big enough for all of us.

that’s where I come from
a house of contradictions,
of small rituals, different prayers, shared meals.
a quiet lesson in coexistence
in a world that keeps failing at it.

Jora Lumezi is a Kosovo-born human rights researcher living in Brussels. She writes about identity, migration, belonging, diaspora, and the emotional leftovers of growing up, leaving, returning, and trying to belong. Her blog, Turbofolk, is where she experiments with short essays and raw poem-prose pieces about movement and memory. She is currently shaping these writings into her first poetry book.