I put flowers on her grave
She’s not there
I look at her pictures
She’s not here
Two nights ago
I had a dream
She was there
Our foreheads together
Blue eyes looking into green
Smiling
We were smiling
Connected
Glad to be together
A beautiful dream
I hold in my heart
Green eyes spilling tears
For all the lonely years
A promise of reunion
As we smiled
I woke up
Remembering
A beautiful dream
Now I begin the next chapter of my life. May these words find a home in the hearts of others learning to practice The Art of Becoming.
Riding a Wave
Into the
Sea of Forgiveness
I
Paddle my canoe
And
Part the waters too
Ashes of Roses
I hold the
Heart-shaped box
Filled with
Dried rose petals
Whispering a prayer
I strike a match
To incinerate memories
Of
Love killed
By words
And blows
I walk
Free of shadows
Scattering
Ashes of roses
Howdy Neighbor,
I traveled the world, then moved back to “The Circle” (country version of a city block). Our families were neighbors for generations and here we are! Together. You have given me the safest home I ever had because you are not an abuser. Thank you for believing in your wife when I couldn’t believe in myself. May we have many more arrowhead seasons together. Please forgive me. I didn’t know how dysfunctional I was until I began to heal. I forgive you. We are Kintsugi Hearts–strength and beauty mending the broken places.
Dear Best Friend andTravel Buddy, I’ve missed you so much since you died from a rare and sudden illness on April 20, 2017. Please forgive me. Your friendship was precious to me, yet I failed you. I thought we had many years ahead of us to travel together. We had plans for a Mississippi Foodie Tour; we planned to fly to the Land of Blue Butterflies. You helped me find my words. Dysfunctional family relations had me so distressed and distracted, it’s taken years to buckle down and concentrate. I regret so many things I missed with you. I never made it to a college football game with you. I missed your son’s wedding. I was blessed to have you in my life. No forgiveness needed; you were a true blue friend. I’m planning a solo trip to our favorite spot. I’ll take an early morning walk like we used to do; looking for driftwood, sand dollars, and mermaid fingernails. More pictures of our log if it hasn’t been rolled by the tide back into the gulf. Sitting in our spot, I will listen as waves and wind whisper words.
Dear Kabtn Khawaga,
The unforgiveness that burdened me for decades almost killed me. Feeling like I had to prove myself worthy of your love and attention, to not be excluded from your life.
2015. Comprehension of your contempt for your first family. A vengeful storm brewed, wreaking havoc in my spirit. Spewing toxins like an oilfield, poisoning my environment. We three females of your first family were only discards in your poker hand. I wanted you to pay with the only currency that matters in your world. Cold, hard CA$H. Dollars earned by any means necessary. Your money is blood money, earned with the life of my sister and the shattering that created V. V. Protector of our mother, found guilty of loving and believing in you.
Dangled carrots, bloody turnips. You, Kabtn; dropping in and out of my life, on a whim. 2007. You realized I was no longer buying your lies and bankrupting myself in the process. You tried to drop back out when I returned to America after my visit to your family home in Alexandria, Egypt. I fight for my family, Kabtn. Your sister the Bulldog and your fourth wife the Diva hide you behind their skirts. You like to keep your harem stirred and fighting, it keeps them distracted while you do whatever floats your boat. In the days before my departure from your home in Alex, I felt the freeze as you retreated, turning colder. I watched in disbelief when you ” played” with Sunny the way you “played” with me. Diva was there the three times I witnessed it, but you were so brazen the last time…outside, in the ground floor flat’s garden. Under the window of the Atelier owned by Sadat’s family. The gates had bars and we were at the corner of two busy streets. People looked through those bars at the Khawaga married to his Alexandrian Diva. This time, I knew why. I found all I needed to know about you as the Familiar Stranger, the International Deadbeat Dad.
You are Kabtn Khawaga in my memoir. I am your Khawaga Kid. The daughter holding onto the grief of my dead family; I was destroying not only myself, but the lives of my loved ones. I end this letter with words that lead to healing for the health of my family. Please forgive me. I forgive you.
Word Games
Aswan in August
Boarding our felucca
To cruise the Nile
You point to a word
“What does that say?”
You ask. I reply
“Captain spelled Kabtn”
A good memory
Of a good day
The word game
A man once called Daddy
Played with his first daughter
Part 2. This story was finished on December 7, 2018. The author is a work in progress. 🙂
You must not only survive after catastrophe and trauma, you must extend yourself; thrive, flourish, nourish, sustain, maintain. Cultivate your own seeds of faith and patience garden. Stand up for yourself, especially when you stand alone. Respect other people; expect respect in return. Someone who does not respect you has no place in your life. Have NO CONTACT with the perpetually dysfunctional and/or the perpetrators of abuse. Realize that if a pattern of abuse is working for them, they are highly unlikely to change of their own volition. They may say things like, “If you really loved me, you would want to be in my life.” Remain silent, do not engage in their quest for negative attention. Any response gives them their “fix.” The truth is, if they respected you and your personal boundaries, they would change their behavior toward you. Accept the fact that some people will never change. If you want change, be the change. Make waves when waves are necessary.
Give thanks and be grateful. I am thankful for the opportunity to write today, practicing the Art of Becoming. Become beautiful from the inside out. Contrary to popular opinion, appearance is NOT everything. Sometimes beauty is only on the surface. Choose a beauty that endures and grows within. What will you have left when your “youthful beauty” fades? Always be willing to change when circumstances deem change necessary. Bend but don’t break. Become fluid, like water; no longer petrified like a piece of wood turned to stone.
November 27, 2017. I was homeless, jobless. I was no spring chicken. The security and stability of the safest home I ever had went up in a puff of smoke. That morning, I was filled with hope that the dysfunction and effects of trauma, abuse, coercive control, were losing the battle for my family, my very life. By nightfall, I was in a state of grief and shock, unable to comprehend the sudden devastation. I had to let go to hold on, focusing on the changes necessary in my woman’s heart. Healing must begin with myself before I can help anyone else.
The Sea of Humanity calls me; it is my last day on IsLand. I found my buried treasure and I wrote my own message on the Wall of Words. I cross the Pool of Reflection and gaze one final time into the Inside Out Mirror. I have no idea if my hair looks perfect, or if the outfit I’m wearing makes me look fat. Inside, I see the true beauty of a joyful, forgiven and forgiving woman’s heart. I can leave the cave called UrHere since I have crossed the abyss to the other side of dysfunction.
Words written in sand were words that had to be acknowledged, but not memorialized. I leave them here on the shore of IsLand to be washed away by the tides of time; they have served their purpose and will only sink me. I push my canoe into the waters and paddle away. Looking forward, not back, I wave.
Part One. December 7, 2018.
One thousand years ago, or was it yesterday; I was floundering after a rogue wave separated me from my family, bobbing like a cork in the chunky swells that abound in the Sea of Humanity. What’s that shining in the darkness? A ship sails toward me, glowing and reflecting on the sea all the colors of the rainbow. FriendShip is written in silvery neon brightness. Music, laughter and the sound of many voices meld, creating a language that my spirit understands.
A woman stands before me with each hand on the head of a beautiful dog. The dog to her left has a pristine white coat. Moonlight reflects off his fur and he’s smiling as wide as all the seas. His great doggy heart is so happy to be by the woman’s side. Her right hand rests on the head of a dog with a sleek black coat that absorbs the moonlight and any threats to the health of her companion. Lights flicker and surround them. The tiniest light is just above the woman’s head and shines brightest of all. I know these three have a lifetime and beyond of adventures together.
“Come join us, we sail the seas looking for adventures.” A Captain’s hat cocked at a jaunty angle adorns her head. This quirky Captain rescues me and we have a wireless connection. Mingling with my shipmates, I know I have found my people. We are all different, but the same. Their conversations are insightful, educational, amusing. Inspiration sparks in the atmosphere.
We drop anchor in deep water and Captain Q leads me to a canoe. She gives me two paddles and a map. “Go. Find yourself.” She winks at me and walks away with those beautiful dogs. I glance back once as I paddle away. Captain Q is swinging in a hammock, lost in contemplation.
I paddle for hours before a speck appears on the horizon. Is it land? It IsLand. I wade through the shallows and pull my canoe onto the sugar sand beach, its grains sparkling white and fine in the sunshine. I rest on the beach, embracing mother earth and thank sister sea. IsLand is a bustling place, but there is no ratrace here. Birds converse in chirps and tweets, building nests and going about their daily business of living. I think they might be discussing me, this creature with no wings washed up on their beach. Bees buzz, humming in huge blossoms that smell deliciously exotic and the island breeze dances in the fronds of palm trees heavily laden with bunches of dates so fat they make my mouth water.
I spy a path and follow it to the mouth of a cave. UrHere is engraved above the entrance. My woman cave is a beautiful space. The hearth in the center spreads warmth and shines light onto a Wall of Words. There! A Pool of Reflection ripples as a blue butterfly flutters its wings. I cross the pool and stand before the Inside Out Mirror, a mirror for all women who seek truth and lasting beauty; all the beautiful things that shine inside each of us regardless of what we look like on the outside. I feel right at home and I know that it is time for my restless and wounded spirit to retreat for a while.
X marks the spot on the map given to me by quirky Captain Q. I begin digging deep to find the buried treasure within my woman’s heart. Patience. Perseverance. Perspiration. Deciphering many messages written for me on the Wall of Words. Obstacles block me. Removing rocks and boulders is hard labor, but the alternative is to give up and never find my treasure. I move a mountain of dirt.
Sands pass through the hourglass as I pray beside the Pool of Reflection, preparing myself before I confront the truth of the Inside Out Mirror and practice the Art of Becoming.
In the private garden of my heart, I see both the beauty and the ugliness of my world; it’s time to choose what will thrive. The thoughts and feelings I nourish here will flourish, spilling over the walls onto the people around me. I name this serene space my Seeds of Faith and Patience Garden. I remove the root of bitterness smothering all the good growing here with the parasitic plant of unforgiveness. The first seeds I plant in my freshly tilled acreage are the seeds of forgiveness. These seeds spread like the seeds of a dandelion, dispersed by the wind, traveling far away from the soil where its roots are planted. I want to be like the dandelion; I want to disperse seeds of forgiveness around the world.
November 27,2016 the rogue wave hit my family, slapping us down with sudden viciousness, each of us grasping our own pieces of wreckage in the aftermath. What lies in a woman’s heart, knowing she must survive alone, not knowing when she will be reunited with her family again? In mine, there is a prayer because I can’t physically save them; clinging to any of them will drown us. They’re drifting away so quickly and none of them are fighting to stay close to me, so I let them go, with my prayers of protection reaching across the waves to find them. This is a solitary journey into the uninhabited and overgrown acreage of my woman’s heart. I am a matriarch on the eve of awakening the eternal wisdom within. I am a woman who will make waves defending my family, yet I am also a woman who will calm any storms that seek to destroy them.
Millions of women around the world are hit by rogue waves. What is heartache? Heartache is an equalizer, reaching high and low. It doesn’t matter if we’re rich or poor; we’re equally miserable when our heart aches. Women understand the universal language spoken from the heart and hearth. The sound of laughter is universally understood and so are the wails of sorrow when women grieve. Our body language speaks louder than words; subtle nuances and cues reveal so much. We smile, we frown, we glow. Some of us glower, burning with resentment, bitter and unforgiving. In sickness, in trauma, whether of the body or spirit, we become merely shadow women.
Daughter, wife, sister, mother grandmother, friend; we fight and strive for the health, happiness and preservation of our families.
This writing from the cave UrHere is to all women and the families they love. To my mother, happy days are here again. To my sister, my sidekick through life for seventeen years, in our travels around the globe, we always had each other and the secret language we shared. After your accident, I loved a sister who could not care for herself and I hated the fraud that robbed you of a better quality of life.
To my young, half-Egyptian, half-American half-sisters, I love you both with my whole heart. Your arabic has a southern drawl. “Salaam Aleikum, y’all.” To my Egyptian stepmother, you taught me more about Egypt than you will ever know. I feel a familial bond with Alexandria, Egypt, since both my sisters were born there. I now have blood ties with a land I have loved since my first visit in the 1970’s. To all women who battle the chunky swells in the Sea of Humanity, may we all set a steady course and keep our vessels ship shape. To be continued.
I’ll never forget Henry. He loved my little sister so much. I know we would both cry if I did get to see him again. Many miles, trials, lifetimes between when these pictures were taken and 2:50 am as I write through another sleepless night.
I wrote this on the day John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama for the last time. Rest in peace, our Congressman called “The Boy from Troy”. #GoodTrouble
HENRY
I watched Congressman John Lewis cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the last time today. I was three years old and fifty miles away when he took that beating for equality and racial justice in America.
We lived in Warri, Nigeria 1967 thru 1969. I learned at an early age to see people as people, not as a color. We had a gardener named Henry who fought to protect my sister from a child molester. He taught me to ride a bicycle. He wanted to return with us to America, but could not because there was Civil War and Henry was twenty-three; eligible for military service.
I remember the tears rolling down his face as we left our little village. I do think of Henry often and wonder what happened to him in Nigeria. I also wonder what would have happened to him in America if he could have traveled back to Alabama with us. A white woman with two little white daughters and a very big, very protective black man.
I saw Henry cry; his tears looked like mine. I heard Henry laugh and his laughter was a booming, joyful sound that made you laugh along with him. Laughter, a universal language. On the day Henry fought to protect my sister, his blood was red, just like mine.
One thing was different about Henry. He had a heart of gold.
My family lived in Deira, (called Creek side) when we first arrived. Later, we moved into a villa close to the airport. The runway was just across the road. We watched the planes take off and land. One morning we saw the first Concord lift off and heard the sonic boom. We also went to the airport quite often to sit in the lounge with it’s panoramic view, watching the planes and observing the people. Many fond memories of Dubai in the 1970’s.
Memories of one of my hometowns before it transformed into the glamorous city it is today. I was always a reader and soon words beguiled me, whispering sometimes; shouting at others. Stuck in my head until I freed them with my pen.
These were the good years, when our family was close. Kabtn Khawaga was faithful to his First Mate V. No matter where we lived in the world, my mother’s world was her home and family. We have very few photos of exotic scenery; she chose instead to capture family celebrations for birthdays and holidays. No matter where we lived, she made a cozy home for her family.
This blog is created for my creative and emotional outlet as I finish a memoir I started for NaNoWriMo 2014. It began with another title, but halfway through, I knew it was going to be about Khawaga Kid and her life as a foreigner through moves, breakup of family, loss of friends. “Who is she?” I heard people ask. “Who am I?” I asked myself.
My first gig as a writer was being Editor of Jumeirah American School’s newspaper, The Desert Sands Rambler. I call my father Kabtn Khawaga in my memoir. He chose to make his secretary his mistress and decreed it was time for First Mate V and her two daughters to leave Dubai so he could be free of family to be an International Playboy. Within seven years, he became an International Deadbeat Dad.
Khawaga Kid 