"Because I knew what I was leaving behind -- the ethics class in my philosophy major".
When we had to return to the USA I grieved for what I was leaving behind but ….
The parents and siblings he was leaving behind would, he knew, pay the price in the form of harassment, or worse, on the part of the government.
O'Brien was not without some small regrets as he left for Europe, knowing what he was leaving behind, uncertain where he was headed.
He called to offer her some chairs he was leaving behind, but for a year after that, there was total silence.
"I never thought about what I was leaving behind, the bigness of the carriage house, and all the art," she said.
He began apologizing to the tired pair he was leaving behind in a high-pitched Alpine warble, then lowered his voice by a couple of octaves and sang, "Trouble will find me".
Was he crying for the mother he knew he was leaving behind?
As she walked away, she looked back at the life she was leaving behind, and then, all of a sudden, she was looking at me.
After running 13.1 miles and then planning dinners and play dates for the brood I was leaving behind, I felt accomplished.
But in the words of Abdullahi, who eventually ended up in Malta, the world he was leaving behind made the dangerous migration to Europe worth the risk.
