I rang my childhood friend Michalis Poleos to congratulate him on his appointment as the first community leader of our occupied community, Kato Deryneia. The appointment, published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus on 2 October 2026, opens the door wider still to the community’s visibility, its autonomy and its recognition as a distinct institutional and administrative entity. And our conversation turned to… another door: the old front door of his ruined family home in occupied Kato Deryneia. Thanks to our friend Takis, Angela’s son, it now stands in his ‘temporary’ home in free Deryneia.
“This door, from the house of my late parents, Fanou and Giorgos Poleos, never shut anyone out,” Michalis told me. “It was always open to people, just as my mother Fanou’s heart was open: a hospitable woman, full of love for people and for our land.”
He added that he “looks at this door every day and is transported back to his childhood, to the happy times in Kato Deryneia, to the family home, to our roots”. Then he went on:
“It’s as if the people, the voices, the images and the memories of a life left behind on the other side, under occupation, come alive again before my eyes. My dream is that one day I’ll take this door and return it to where it truly belongs. It pains me that it sits so far from its rightful place, in the house that held it in its embrace for years.
“At the same time, I feel deeply grateful to have a piece of our family’s history close by, something I can share with my sisters, Ellada, Marina and Maria, and with my children. Sometimes I think about restoring it, looking after it and giving it pride of place in my home. But something inside me holds me back. Perhaps because if I give it a permanent place here, I’m afraid it would be like accepting that it will never go back to where it truly belongs. And I don’t want to stop waiting.
“I don’t want to let go of the hope of return. Until that day, this door will remain far more to me than a family heirloom. It will be the symbol of my love, my memory and my waiting. A door that never truly closed. A door waiting patiently, as we are, to open again. This time, in a free Kato Deryneia.”
