I was still asleep in Doha when the news broke on the morning of Dec. 8, 2024. The regime of Bashar al-Assad had finally fallen. The euphoria I felt in that first minute has never really left. It still feels like a dream even a year later to the date.

Like millions of Syrians in the diaspora, I had resigned myself to the idea that I may never see my birth country without Assad in charge. But an 11-day rebel offensive led by Ahmed al-Sharaa changed all of that.

More optimistic Syrians had faith the regime would be toppled eventually, not by the current generation that rose up against it, but a future one. This regime, they believed, could not rule forever. This regime, they hoped, might outlive them, but not their children. The revolution might be defeated temporarily but would not die. 

For years, I had assumed that my life outside Syria was temporary, that going back after studying and building a career abroad was just what would happen. I had often prayed about living long enough to sit together in my family home in Deir Ezzor, joined by my parents and the whole family, to walk in “our” street—a mini-village made only of the houses of my uncles and aunts. But months before Assad’s fall, I had a realization. I had not been able to picture any path that would lead me back. There was no way to pass through Damascus, and cousins who visited my hometown told me there was nothing left. The faces were different, with the people I knew either dead (from old age or killed in the war), and........

© Time