It never occurred to me that I was prejudiced. In fact, I was inspired to leave the life I knew as a young white man to be a Christian missionary in Africa. Yet, until that time at age 22 in my little town in Colorado, I don’t remember ever meeting a black person or knowing anything about black history. I just knew I wanted to know and serve God. As I prepared to depart my country for that foreign land, I felt an inward restraint so strong that I canceled my plans with Africa Inland Mission. In the coming years, several events and relationships impacted my decision and changed my life. My desire had been admirable, but difficult circumstances revealed that I was not like I had hoped that I was. It would take 49 years before I went on my first visit to Kenya.

Watts

Amid a complicated set of circumstances, I found myself in Los Angeles—alone, far from home, and having made decisions that canceled everything that I had accomplished in college and learned from my numerous, hopeful mentors. Suddenly I needed a job. Not knowing why, I was impressed to apply for a teaching position in Watts. This was soon after the riots and fires of the mid-sixties.

When I applied to L.A. City Schools, Superintendent Baer said that in all of Los Angeles only one teaching position was open. It was in Watts! I went to Charles Drew Jr. High for an interview with the principal, Mr. Henrikson. He told me I could have the job if I wanted it, but he wanted to assure me I would be a failure. I was white, and I would be a teacher. I would face nothing but rebellion among the 1800 black students and represent authority. Having a strong conviction, I surprised him. I said “Fine, I will take the job.”

Suddenly, I was a white teacher in a black school. I was to teach plastics and other industrial subjects, of which I knew absolutely nothing. I would have as many as 44 students in my shop classes. On my second day, a riot broke out. It was chaos. My students threw my two desks into the walls and tore down some of the plaster. They were all screaming “Get outta here Whitey and don’t ever come back!” I ran out of my shop door, across the teachers’ parking lot and across the campus to hide in the Counselor’s Office under Mr. Kerr’s desk. He was a black man, the former teacher of my shop classes. He knew if I were a failure he would have to return to that impossible job.

I cried on the way to school and quit every day for three months. In the agony of my situation, I learned things about myself. I discovered that my love for God was mostly doctrinal, and my love for people mostly theoretical. In the next four years, 700 students passed through my classes. I had as many as four death threats on my life in a single week. My students sometimes started fights in class, chased others with a hack saw and chisel, threw a hammer at others, threw orange juice at me during recess, and more. In my constant distress, one day I went into my supply room during class, slammed the door and just stood there, cursing them all. I was frustrated and angry that many saw my white skin and cursed me for the same reason. I didn’t see people. I didn’t see faces. I just saw black bodies in motion. And I suddenly saw the prejudice and hatred in my own heart.

Where had that little missionary in me gone? A light dawned inside of me—something was wrong in my own heart. The situation had not made me prejudiced. It only exposed what was deep inside of me already. Perhaps my students had the same problem. I cried out to the living God and realizations began.  My hatred began to turn to a genuine love that I previously only thought I had.

Soon, I was elected Department Chairman, and my students had responded to my changing view and feelings. I brought many of them home with me on weekends. I had no “teacher’s pet.” Rather, it was a rivalry, a great honor to be invited to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson’s apartment for the weekend. In my third year, students prepared a project display for the Los Angeles Industrial Crafts Fair. Of 34 Junior High Schools, my students took First Place, a phenomenal accomplishment.

By that time, I had begun to see them as people, individuals, creations of a loving God whom everyone can relate to. I wasn’t “color blind.” I saw color as a beautiful gift, the more diverse the better. To this day, Ricky, Michael, Louis and the others remain in my heart. If there were ever a need, I knew they and the others would defend me to the death, as I also would have for them. I failed a lot, but a lot was gained—in them and in me. Watts had become my Africa.

Transition

Between my entrance into the black community and the present time, I have had countless experiences of peoples with complexions, languages, and cultures different from mine. When I discovered the depths of my own prejudice and depravity while teaching in Watts, I opened my heart deeper than I could have ever known possible. Since that time, I have grown, filled with love of God and love of all people.

Expansion

Half-way through my doctoral program 42 years after teaching at Watts, I was required to present a Forum Essay to students, faculty, and the public. My essay was on Poetry. The essay’s impact was significant. The critiquing professors were all known to be incredibly sophisticated, daunting, and tough. No critiques being offered, the chairman concluded by saying that during his 14 years at Oxford Graduate School (OGS) there had never been a student’s presentation that was so outstanding that no one thought it could be improved. The discussion was then opened up to the audience for responses. One impactful, positive comment came from a highly esteemed, black professor. Another wonderful comment in the audience came from a successful black woman, my esteemed colleague. The President of OGS later asked if I would extend my Forum Essay to a doctoral dissertation. Eventually, she also arranged for me to meet the esteemed Dr. Maya Angelou.

Dr. Maya Angelou

Through amazing circumstances, among a luncheon of 500 black women and I in Charlotte, NC, I heard Dr. Angelou speak. Weeks later, my wife and other guests were sitting at her lunch table, an exquisite affair! I had read much of her stunning life story but physically being with her vastly enlarged my views of the black community, of their suffering, struggles, and successes. On one occasion in her home, we sat with Dr. Angelou and Oprah Winfrey for a casual discussion of more than one hour. The night she invited us to stay overnight in her home, she asked me to autograph one of my books for her and then ordered eight more copies for her friends. She included us in her Annual Five-Day-Celebration of Thanksgiving in Winston-Salem among her closest biological and social friends.

From my friend Dr. Maya Angelou, I learned of her great involvement with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Because of her, I became acquainted with the daughter of Malcolm X as we were seated in the VIP section at the U.S. Post Office inauguration of the “Maya Angelou Stamp.” Because of her, I have great friends among the black community in America and with Africans of many countries. I even got to go on a fantastic visit to see Mama Sarah, President Obama’s grandmother in Kenya. Five weeks before she passed away in 2014, Dr. Angelou designated me to help design, build, and launch a traveling, educational museum of her life and work. Her personal assistant of more than 15 years continues to call me and stay overnight with us in Nashville occasionally as he is crisscrossing our great nation. And so much more…

Summary

The experiences and perspectives that I have shared in this discussion were pivotal adventures of my life, but there are countless other stories of impact to my own life—of concept, of sub-culture, and appreciation of the black community. The relevant enlightenment and spiritual renewal of my heart has included people of every culture, religion, and complexion whom I know from all around the world. It is through experiencing persons in their context with mine, serving and participating in mutual events in my home and theirs, that my appreciation has grown, expanded, and been shared. It may be that others have found the need to discover their own inward condition and realize a journey such as mine. The joyful overflow of my life’s adventure thus far has led me to publish more than 25 books on family, spiritual guidance, and work, relevant to all. My contribution to celebrating Black History Month here may be small, but it is personal, it is real, and it is mine.

The day my husband died, my work for a newspaper had taken me out of the office to do interviews and take pictures. I hurried back to my computer because I wanted to finish early. The man I had loved for three decades had not been well for several years. He had attempted suicide several times before, and I had always been there to stop him, but today – on a most magnificent Tuesday, the kind of day only an Alabama sky can provide – I was worried. The weekend had given us new problems, and new problems usually brought with them reactions that could range from unusual behavior to a complete loss of hope.

I telephoned him as I drove from one interview to the next. We talked briefly about ordinary things and about my new idea: that he should try out a new program I had found. He had been diagnosed with bipolar depression in 2004, a behavioral disorder that decreases a person’s ability to handle stress. The toll this took on him in a few years far exceeded the ravages of major depression he had dealt with alone for a lifetime.

Those years had taken a toll on me, too. But I had no idea what lay just ahead. Suicide is not just a personal disaster. It happens to everyone in a family and devastates whatever life came before, changing forever those who are left behind.

After writing my column for the week, I left work early. I felt desperate to get home. On the way, I called him again. The day before had been his fifty-eighth birthday. Our plans had changed a couple of times recently, but the weekend had been eerily quiet. On Sunday afternoon, we sat on the deck in the sunshine. I grew tired watching him go through boxes of papers and discard this or that. At the time I thought he was just organizing. I left him to go inside and take a nap. When I returned he had finished, and the day ended with the sweetness I had known for so long: the satisfying closeness of just being with him.

But by this Tuesday, around four o’clock, the calls between our cell phones kept dropping – or perhaps he kept hanging up. I told him I was on the way home. As I did, I passed a grocery store and thought I should stop for a birthday cake. Yesterday had not gone well, and today I had a chance to do something special for him, but I was exhausted and felt driven to be with him. Something was wrong. I was sure of it. I didn’t stop, a fact I regret.

His voice, when we spoke again, was too calm. He told me he had broken into the gun safe, the one I bought after he had his first psychotic break. I realized later he could have done that at any time. My false sense of security had been nothing more than a thin veil.

“I’m not mad.” Inside, I panicked. What would I do now that I only had my voice with which to save his life? “Where are you?”

Carefully, as if speaking to a child, he told me. I asked him to put the pistol down and cross the road to our neighbor’s house. When the connection broke, I dialed 911, reported the situation, and heard the words that would change the course of my thinking.

“Don’t go in,” the operator said. “Sometimes they wait until they see you before they do it. Park on the side of the road where he can’t see you.”

That was something I had not thought of before. It terrified me. Woodenly, I obeyed. Now I had entered an alternate reality, shock creeping over me like a blanket. I stopped the car as close to the house as I could without being seen.

Eventually, a young deputy arrived, took my house key, and went inside, finding my husband’s body. He came back to my car, where I waited. Through the window, which was rolled down, he extended his hand, and I latched onto two of his fingers with my own. His expression was so pained that I couldn’t bear to make him tell me what he had found.  

“I know,” I told him, and he explained that the scene would first have to be treated like a homicide. I nodded and stayed where I was as he drove back to the house.

It took more time for neighbors to arrive and the call to go out to our church friends who gathered around the car and waited with me. I made calls to his family and to our children in three different states. I was deep in shock.

From there, the nightmare of the past few years changed into the hellish existence of a grief I had never known before. I was familiar with death. My mother had died. So had my father and my brother-in-law. Even in childhood, in my life as a preacher’s kid it was not uncommon for me to attend every funeral and visit every grieving household. I played the beautiful organ in our church sanctuary at the funeral of one of my best friends’ father when I was only nine or ten years old. I had read and written about death, but this was different.

Sometimes suicide comes without warning, but for several years before my husband’s suicide, his uncontrollable, rapid cycling moods and bizarre episodes left us both drained. He was at the mercy of his illness, and as I tried to help him and to get help for him in every way I could, I was at the mercy of his illness as well.

Physically, I had already used almost all of my strength. I had no reserves. My body was anemic; my mind was in a state of constant crisis. Even the moments between emergencies became crises because those were the waiting and worrying times. I never knew what would be coming next, but I knew it would be horrible.

Suddenly, as I sat in my car on the side of the road, he was gone, and I entered the aftermath of suicide. Since that day, I’ve worked alongside thousands of other survivors of suicide loss to try and understand what happened; and to mourn, heal, and rebuild. To help myself, I had to help others who were struggling through similar situations.

I discovered that grieving and hope can become entangled with regret and guilt and so many other emotions. During this confusing time, hope is a concept that is difficult to hold onto. Hold onto it we must, however, even if we have to borrow strength from each other.

Suicide changes us, but together, we can turn mourning into joy. For me, healing became a three-step process. I first found that co-support fortifies survivors so that obstacles like secondary wounding do not halt progress toward a successful return to life. Then, there is the essential but difficult step that enables survivors to let go of their past lives and turn toward new ones. No one wants to go on without a dear loved one, but a healthy recovery from grief depends on finding the strength to let go. Without this interim step, a survivor may not realize there are other ways to carry forward the memory of the lost one, other kinds of relationships that can be built with the departed. Lastly, there is an internal drive that emerges in most survivors that motivates them to go beyond just surviving to making meaning out of loss. This can manifest first as an instinctive need to do something. This guiding force inspires survivors to find or to create ways to carry a message forward, to turn their own personal tragedies into victories by helping others. They may write books, found organizations, set up foundations, or contribute in other ways. Many of these are artistic or creative in nature and come straight from the heart.

Suicide touches all kinds of people from every background and belief system. It can create a barrier between those closest to the person who died and those around them. Historically, suicide has been viewed by many societies as a social taboo, but the underserved stigma, shame, and shunning that surround suicide is being dispelled by the efforts of loved ones who are banding together to share both pain and healing. One such group – the Alliance of Hope for suicide loss survivors (www.allianceofhope.com) – is attempting to change the culture surrounding suicide worldwide. With the guiding slogan “Kindness Matters,” members share the simple but powerful knowledge that one can not only survive the loss of a loved one or friend to suicide but also can go beyond just surviving to rebuild happy, productive lives.

“You are not alone.”

“This was not your fault.”

“Healing is possible.”

“There are specific things you can do to build a new life that honors the one you lost.”

When I reach out in this way to comfort a mom or dad, a partner or child who is in more pain than they ever knew existed, it is because of the many times I saw my husband’s gentleness, his respect for all living things, his brilliant mind at work. His life is not defined by how he died. Neither is mine. He made such an impact on my life and on the lives of anyone who knew him that even his illness – even suicide – could not change the good he did in the world.

I can only hand survivors a little hope, but in that moment, hope is enough.

The ruler’s time was fading away. He needed to train soldiers and workers and find more resources. He also had to make some donations to the neighboring villages, as he knew that the more they all helped one another, the more likely they would be to defend their territory. Jack was still happy because they had at least put up walls around the village, built barracks for people, and two camps for soldiers. He was spending four or five hours checking the village every day, because he knew the ruler had to take care of his home. Suddenly, he heard the voice coming from the old and loyal tower. It was telling news of the war. Jack gathered all his soldiers because he was the only one to command them. Strategy was so important, because bad planning would mean the end of all the villages. After a brave speech, they started to march. All the soldiers’ attention was directed to Jack, waiting for his commands.

But suddenly, Jack lost all his soldiers. He was mad and ran away from his room to check the router and saw that there was no internet connection. What was he going to do now? Jack sighed. He supposed he would do homework instead. Exams were getting closer; all his enthusiasm faded away.

It does not matter what age you are, most people find it difficult to concentrate on the task they are required to do. There are books, seminars and many activities to motivate people to finish their work. These all show that we face an important problem with handling our responsibilities.

This is also one of the key issues in education. Much research has focused on how to improve the engagement and motivation of young people towards their school work. As you have probably heard, it’s almost a cliché that most parents complain about young people’s irresponsibility regarding school work and work around the home. While this has been a problem standing in front of us for a while now, we must ask: what makes these kinds of distracting video games so appealing?

The story told above is happening every day. That video game has been downloaded more than 50 million times and is being played every day by millions of people of various ages. The first time I had heard of this game was when I conducted interviews with children using a tablet PC in school. Although my focus of the research was not about mobile games, this was brought up when I wanted to make informal conversation before initiating the interview. One boy was so enthusiastic when we started to talk about this game, that he mentioned he would stop playing the game, go to sleep, but set his alarm for five hours later – his worker would have finished the task he’d been assigned, and the boy would wake up to assign a new task Not finishing such a task would mean lagging behind his peers, for his village would not develop.

I asked him, “what is so nice about this game? You are just building and upgrading buildings and fighting against others.”

The answer was, “I don’t know; it is just fun.”

I also installed the game. I had played it for two months until I woke up at 3 a.m. with a notification. One of my workers had finished his work and I assigned him another task. Then I tried to sleep. I opened my eyes again after a couple of seconds and saw my wife’s shocked eyes. She could not believe I woke up just for this. It was the last time I played the game. But the question was still in my mind: how could we trigger our sense of responsibility by exemplifying the methods of the game in real life?

We – people in education, parents – spend a considerable amount of time and resources to nurture children in a manner so that they become aware of their responsibilities. However, schools, teachers, homework, etc. are seen as boring and something to be escaped by most children.

Gamification is a trendy jargon nowadays. It aims at transforming real life context in a manner that adopts game thinking in online platforms. From this perspective, it proposes to increase motivation, engagement, sense of enjoyment, and the positive attitudes of people towards work (Huanng and Soman, 2013). While there is much research in the sector of business, gamification is also widely recognized in education. The educational purpose of gamification is that instead of blunting the way children best learn, the way they enjoy to learn should be adapted in an educational context. This is not a new idea, as this was also expressed in other contexts. For example, Said Nursi touches on a crucial point:

One reason why preachers’ advice is ineffective nowadays is that they invite people to change their nature. They advise: “Do not be envious or ambitious, do not feel enmity or be obstinate, do not love the world,” and so on. Such advice is useless, for it is against human nature. Instead, these energies can and should be channeled into good deeds and directed toward positive aims. (The Ninth Letter, p. 53)

If we want to apply this method in education, the first thing we should consider is what children like and enjoy most. Obviously, many of them enjoy playing games and any advice like, “Don’t play games! Don’t laugh during the lesson! Don’t spend time in front of the computer! Be quiet in class!” will be counter-productive. As in Said Nursi’s statement, this is asking the impossible from a child who is created to learn in an environment that offers play, social interaction, and competition.

Jean Piaget is a well-known theorist about play and the cognitive development of children. He emphasizes the importance of play and its contribution to healthy development of children (Sutton-Smith, 1983). Vygotsky (1967) also underlines social play and peer interaction in child development. However, while Vygotsky gives the example of a child who rides an imaginary horse with a stick, today’s children’s perception of play has changed and continues to change dramatically. Therefore, it should be understood how Jack’s and my sense of responsibility were piqued. While we both cognitively focused and spent a considerable amount of time on this game, we also enjoyed doing so.

From the perspectives above, the stimulating dynamics used in games could be transformed in a suitable manner into curriculum and the classroom environment could be redesigned. This can also be adapted into work environments, as in Google whose office buildings are colorful rather than plain, and there is even a slide for their workers to use instead of stairs. Their aim is to make the environment flexible so people in the firm do not perceive what they are doing as a work.

There is also educational technology that pays attention to gamification. ClassDojo is one of them. It is a simple but effective idea to attract student’s attention and change their behavior. Each student chooses an avatar that looks like a small monster and the teacher assesses various things on behalf of the students’ avatars. Teachers can give immediate feedback to students. For example, when a student shows a negative behavior in class or solves a question, students will see the changes in his/her ClassDojo app on their mobile device. The children I interviewed showed great enthusiasm about this application and interestingly, they perceive this application as a game, although the only differences between this application and normal assessment sheets were the avatars and the template. Kahoot and Socrative are two other mobile applications that these students have experience with. These mobile applications are also perceived as joyful, competitive, and rich learning platforms.

While considering how to transfer the strategies of the game into the real life context, it should not be forgotten that there are parents and teachers who have serious reservations about games, as some of their children are addicted to these kinds of games. They are right to have these doubts and I do not think games are absolutely innocent. In fact, most strategy games, including the one that me and Jack became addicted to, have many negative messages, from stealing to killing people. But when it is impossible to avoid them completely, it is best to focus on the positive themes and actualize them for productive outcomes in schools and family life.

All in all, I am still thinking about the situation of my village and neighborhoods. The rulers of neighboring villages were sad and angry when I said that I was leaving: “Winter” was getting closer and they needed my donations and the soldiers I trained. I am now consoling myself as my wife, who is a child psychologist, assigned me to do cleaning and made me think of all the bacteria as my enemies and a big threat to our lovely village (home). As parents and educators, it is our duty to discover the way your children and students learn and produce your own real games.

Ahmet Tugra is a PhD candidate in the department of Learning, Technology and Education in the UK.

The door to room 153 opened and a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy walked out alone. His eyes went immediately to the spot where he knew she would be waiting. “Mommy!” he squealed, and a smile brighter than sunshine burst across his young face. His lanky legs kicked out at a slightly odd angle as he ran towards the one person he had been waiting to see since 8:30 am that morning.

As he got near, he shed his backpack. As Mom welcomed him into her arms, the hug nearly knocked her over. “I missed you, Mommy!”

This is how you will find me at 2:30 pm every school day of the year. My name is Kimberly Parker. I am a mother of three children. My oldest son, Cooper, has autism.

When Cooper was born, I ended my career as a Sales & Marketing Director to remain home with him. I embraced this plan, as it allowed me freedom to not only spend oodles of time with our son, but also gave me time to work on creative projects, particularly writing, that I had abandoned in my climb up the corporate pyramid.

When Cooper was 16 months old, we realized he had significantly stunted language development. Specialists were seen, and we soon knew that the challenges we faced had a name: autism.

Fast forward 5+ years. Our family now consists of Cooper, age 8; Benjamin, age 6; and Kacey, age 4. My husband and I have worked hard to keep our heads above water while meeting our family’s needs, and our extended family and friends help us tremendously.

Even with all of the help, I know my son better than anyone else on this planet knows him. I say this not to sound prideful – it is a matter of fact. My husband is a wonderful father, however, since I am the person who is with Cooper the most, out of sheer desperation I have had to learn to understand my son by merely looking into his eyes. His language processing challenges make it difficult for him to understand things in the way typically developing children do.

Most parents of children with autism are in a similar position. They are the experts in dealing with their children. Because our day-to-day functioning depends upon it, we parents have to learn how to build relationships with our children. These relationships serve as the foundation for everything else that happens.

The problem is that the thousands of children who have autism will, one day, grow to be adults with autism.

I’d be a liar if I said that the question, “What will happen to my son when I die?” does not at times keep me awake at night. Does anyone know him better than I? Is anyone in a deeper relationship with him? Does anyone love him more than my husband and I do? When the loving, knowledgeable caregivers of these children pass away (which inevitably will happen), is our society prepared to care for people who are unable to fully care for themselves? It isn’t right now, but it can be.

Never mind 72 hours, 72 years would probably not be enough to fully prepare my son to face the world without the mother to whom he is attached. However, I believe that in 72 hours, I can ignite a fire that can help prepare the world for my son.

Many schools have begun to implement programs to teach kids about the various disorders and disabilities which are increasing in alarming numbers. Each school year Cooper’s classmates learn, to some degree, how to function in the classroom with a peer who has special needs. At the beginning of the year, teachers talk to his peers about autism. Kids learn that Cooper has challenges, and they are told that they must be accepting and helpful friends to him.

This is a good beginning. But it is only a beginning.

Is it enough to teach them how to co-exist in a world with people who think differently, who communicate differently, and who have extraordinary needs?

I don’t believe so.

Kids don’t simply need to learn how to tolerate one another – they must to learn how to build relationships with one another. Those who are different do not need to be merely acknowledged as different – they need people to come alongside them, people who will seek to understand the depths of their individuality.

When a child with autism is alone on the playground – it isn’t enough that other kids refrain from bullying him. Can even one child dare to come close and seek to engage him? And when that doesn’t work, will the child be content to sit near him and just share the same breathing space – because he or she understands that for a person with autism, simply having someone nearby can be enough to foster feelings of acceptance?

My vision is to see a system implemented in our schools in which children learn how to be intentional about building better relationships. We can empower and equip kids to care for their peers in a way that goes way beyond tolerance. No matter what their age, kids can learn skills at a level they can understand. Intentionally building upon these skills throughout their education will not only build a better world for kids with autism – it will build a better world for everyone.

There are experts who have dedicated their lives to helping autistic children and their parents learn to build relationships with each other. There are others who have developed peer-to-peer training sessions for school use. I believe we can take the knowledge from these experts, combine them into a complete program, and teach these skills in our schools so that parents are not the only ones who hold the key to their child’s relationships.

In my 72 hours, if given the resources, I would engage three experts: Dr. Steve Gutstein (Relationship Development Intervention specialist for children with autism), Dr. Gordon Neufeld (expert in attachment and anti-bullying) and Heather McCracken (founder of Friend 2 Friend Learning Society). They have each developed materials that address different components of this problem. However, if these experts came together, I believe a complete, life-changing strategy could be designed and presented to educators.

In 72 hours, I would seek for the four of us to spend a day brainstorming what this plan could entail, and then gather as many educators as possible to cast a vision and ignite a fire: from parents and teachers to University Education Department Heads to U.S. State Educators to the Canadian Minister of Education and all the way to the U.S. Secretary of Education. This fire would move them to action to see a new type of preparation brought into schools. Not for the sake of another program or something “to-do,” but for the sake of building a society of people who know how to love selflessly, to prepare them for life together.

With myself as the parent-champion, my son at my side, and Dr. Gutstein, Dr. Neufeld and Mrs. McCracken to speak about the psychological benefits and technical aspects, we could introduce them to a new way to do “tolerance” in the form of attachment and relationship building in peers.

Imagine…

The 72-hour period was filled with a whirlwind of activity. Along with the field experts, Mom and son spoke powerfully to hundreds of people, presenting a radical vision. They shed light on the magnitude of the problem that autistic children and adults everywhere encounter. They also began an awakening of the need to prepare for a world to come. They saw faces light up with passion and high-level educators commit to not letting the dream of a selfless society fade.

As Mom hugged her son for what she knew would be the last time, her heart was not heavy – it was full of hope. Surrounding them were hundreds of outstretched arms which she knew would take her place in helping this little boy for the rest of his life. And as she said her final “I love you,” she knew that her life had been well-lived.

In 2004, Kim’s son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. She writes to equip others to better understand autism and the families who love the autistic. She enjoys connecting with parents facing the seemingly insurmountable challenges of autism and helping them find joy. She is also a Christian author and speaker. Her first published book is called Radical Love…Forever Changed. You can follow Kim’s blog or connect with her at www.SimplyCreativeWriting.com.

He was few minutes late for the meeting, but not so late as to be unacceptable. After the meeting was over, Adam went to his office. He had a lot of things to do: a report was due in two weeks, there was to be a presentation for a project he had just finished, a proposal for a new project, and a bunch of minor office tasks. However, he did not feel like doing any of them at the moment; moreover, they all could wait a few minutes. He was curious about the up-coming election, so he decided to read the news online. Then he felt the need to look up on the latest technology news. Without noticing, he spent nearly an hour reading the news.

Adam then felt compelled to start preparing his presentation. He was intelligent and the project was innovative; now was the time to prepare the best possible presentation. He outlined the presentation in his mind and started working on the first slide. He spent quite a bit of time on the first slide, but he could not get it right; every time he tried something, he saw that it was not perfect and started again from scratch. Finally, he exhausted his energy and motivation and decided that preparing the presentation for this project was too difficult and postponed working on it later that day.

He decided to move to the report task, but first he needed a break. It was around 1 p.m. and it was time for the noon prayer, but this was not urgent, he thought; he could do it later. He decided to take a break and check his emails. He quickly checked his three email accounts to see if he had any unread messages-there was a message in one of the accounts. It was from his high school friend asking how he was doing. He was busy right now, and decided that he did not have the time to answer; he signed out. Finally, he started writing something for the report. Even though he had planned to work on the report last week, he had not been able to do it, not because he did not have enough time, but because it had not been due and he decided that it could wait. He started working on the report, but he noticed that the software he was using to write the report was notifying him of a feature update. Because he did not feel like working on the report, he went ahead and downloaded the update. Installing it took some time. Even though it was completely unnecessary at that moment, he convinced himself that it was worthwhile, at least for the future.

He jotted down some notes for the report. While he was working on it, his friend from the next office came and asked him if he could join them to play basketball at the weekend. He told him that even though he would very much like to join them, he was very busy and had no time nowadays. The time for the noon prayer was nearly over. He hurried up and performed the obligatory part of the prayer quickly. As for the voluntary prayers, he had no time for them right now.

After the prayer he remembered that he still needed to write the proposal for next week. He was planning to work on it this week, but, because he had not worked on the report last week, he had to work on that now instead of the proposal.

Without having realized it, it was nearly 6 p.m. already. He was married, so he did not want to stay in the office. After all, he could work on the report at home, he thought. He went back home, had dinner with his wife; his wife mentioned that it had been a long time since they had seen a movie together and wondered if they could go and see one. He told his wife that even though he would very much like to, he was too busy this week; perhaps they could go next week. He remembered that he said the same thing last week; he had worked well last week so he would have time this week. He knew that he was not working very efficiently, and he was not able to do so, even though he wanted to. He condemned himself of being lazy and not a very good husband.

Weeks passed. Adam continued the same style of lethargic life; he was carrying out all his duties (his job, volunteering tasks, duties as a husband, etc.) at the bare minimum; he was neither satisfied nor completely unhappy. However, his wife was not happy with the whole process; every time she asked something from Adam, he would promise to do it later; however this would almost always be delayed indefinitely. Once at the weekend she asked Adam whether they could go out. Adam said that he was very busy; perhaps they could go out later that day or next week. This time, his wife told Adam that she no longer had confidence in him. He was shocked; he had not expected such a response. He tried to explain himself to his wife by saying that every promise he had made was with sincere intentions, but his wife did not believe even this explanation. He said he was sorry, but his wife did not accept his apology as this was the hundredth time he had apologized. Adam felt that the most important thing between a husband and a wife was trust; losing this meant losing everything. He felt terrible; he tried to explain everything, but nothing pleased his wife. He felt exhausted; he blamed his wife not being more understanding and left.

Adam spent hours thinking about what had gone wrong. Indeed, his wife was right; every time she asked for something, he would promise to do it and even though he was sincere in his promise, he would put it off indefinitely. He felt awful about the whole situation, but he was not able to rectify it. Then he thought about all the promises that he had made to God, almost all of which he had broken. Then, he shivered with the thought of “what if God also says that He does not trust me anymore?” And what if God told him that He had given Adam enough chances and that he had used them all up, that he had none left and therefore, there is no need for him to be alive any longer? That would be a horrible end indeed.

It was time for the afternoon prayer. After the prayer, he made the following supplication over and over again: “Should He not know what He created? And He is the Subtle, the Aware” (Mulk 67:14). Thus, he asked for help from the One Who is aware of everything, Who is the All-Compassionate, the All-Merciful, and the All-Powerful.

This time, he was determined to solve the lethargy problem. First, he contemplated about what were the causes of being lethargic.

Indeed, Adam was very lethargic and there were many reasons for it. It was not that he wanted to be a lazy person; on the contrary, he wanted to succeed; he could be smart and successful when he put his energy into a task. However, he was very disorganized; because he did not assign tasks to different time slots, he could easily spend those times on tasks that seemed necessary but actually were unnecessary, such as spending long minutes or even hours reading the news, installing feature updates, etc. He was a perfectionist; he wanted to make the final product (report, presentation, etc.) perfect; this is a good habit to have. However, being a perfectionist made him overcritical of himself, and this dampened his desire to work. He procrastinated; procrastination made his tasks pile higher and deeper; delaying one task caused delays to others. The constant thought of piled-up tasks constantly preoccupied him and as a result he had no time to reply to his emails, no time for the optional prayers, no time for sports, no time for entertainment, and no time to read books, etc. However, had he set aside some time to do sports; however to support hard work he would have to have a healthier body and mind, he needed to set aside an hour for relaxation, and not spend long hours on the web surfing while thinking “I should not be doing this right now” at the back of his mind, yet at the same time he had to be able to relax and start the next day with a fresh mind.

To solve these problems, he would have to eliminate the causes; however, most importantly, he needed energy and determination. He had neither. Then, he remembered: “My Lord would not care for you were it not for your prayer” (Furqan 25:77). Indeed, he was too weak to depend on himself alone, but he had learned that if he depended on God he could be the most powerful person in the world. He remembered all the things he had read and learned… The importance of “In the Name of God,” the need to put his trust in God, the fact that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had a prayer for almost every occasion, that it is very important not to sleep at dawn, that one should perform their daily prayers as early as one can, that one should eat, sleep and talk less, and that eating much meant sleeping much, that our Prophet used to go to bed after the night prayer, the importance of lawful earning and legitimate food, that the work between two prayers is counted as worship, that he should not leave today’s task for tomorrow, that he should know the value of free time before he became too busy, and so on. He felt that he could not do all of these; but once again, he remembered the verse above. However, he did not know where to start. Then, he recited: “Should He not know what He created? And He is the Subtle, the Aware” (Mulk 67:14) and while making the prayer, he knew that God knew everything about him and that Adam had to extricate himself from this problem but he was not successful. He asked for help; he asked for solutions to all his problems, dilemmas, troubles and obstacles.

He thought of starting a new life-style tomorrow morning, but then he remembered that it was Satan who was whispering him to start “tomorrow”; he needed to put an end to this miserable life right now. He went back home; dinner was waiting. He thought “what a patient wife I have; we had a quarrel, yet she still prepared dinner for me.” The food was very good, but he did not eat much. First of all, he was not feeling well, but he also wanted to practice the “eat less” principle. When it was time for the night prayer, he immediately rushed to his prayer rug; he knew that if he does not pray now, he will delay it at least two hours. After the prayer, he went to bed.

He woke up early in the morning; he was able to wake up early because he had not slept with a full stomach, and he had gone to bed early. He made the supplication “All praise belongs to God; He gave me life after my death; we shall return to Him. There is no god but God. O God; increase my knowledge. Do not let me go astray after you have guided me to the straight path. Grant me mercy. Indeed You are the Bestower.” He thanked God for giving him another chance.

He performed the morning prayer and he thought about some of the wisdoms inherent in the morning prayer: By nature man is extremely weak, yet everything touches him, saddens and grieves him. Also, he is utterly lacking in power, yet the calamities and enemies that afflict him are extremely numerous. Also, he is extremely wanting, yet his needs are indeed many. Also, he is lazy and incapable, yet the responsibilities of life are most burdensome. Also, his humanity has connected him to the rest of the universe, yet the decline and disappearance of the things he loves and with which he is familiar continually pains him. Also, his reason shows him exalted aims and lasting fruits, yet his reach is short, his life brief, his power slight, and his patience little. Thus, it can be clearly understood how essential it is for a spirit in this state to have recourse to and present a petition to the Court of an All-Powerful One of Glory, an All-Compassionate All-Beauteous One at the time of prayer in the early morning through prayer and supplication, to seek success and help from Him; this is an essential support so that one can face the things that will happen to them in the coming day and bear the duties that will be loaded on them. He then sought refuge in God from laziness. He was feeling energetic, but still very deep in thoughts of all the things that had happened yesterday.

He felt very sleepy, but he resisted going to bed; in order to wake himself up, he took a shower. After the shower, he recited a few pages from the Qur’an. He was feeling very ashamed every moment he felt he was in the presence of God, but interestingly, he was also feeling very close to God.

After having a light breakfast, Adam left for the office. It was pretty early in the morning. When he arrived at work, he made a list of the things he needed to do. Then, he divided his day into five, according to the five daily prayers; he put the prayers down on his list first. He was determined to perform them as early as he could. Then, he arranged the other tasks between the prayers.

Now, it was the time to start the first task. It was a new project and it was always difficult to take the first step. He pushed himself to start the task, but he could not start. He was about to give up; then, he remembered the power and the treasures hidden inside “bismillah” (in the name of God).” He recited it and he also recited “O God, make it easy for me, not difficult. O God, finish it with a good and beneficial end.” Adam felt a little better; he recited the words a few more times. He was able to take the first step and the rest just followed.

When he tired of one task, he said “All Praise belongs to God, Alhamdulillah” for each task, and he moved onto the next with bismillah. But, after about two hours, he felt very tired. He was inclined to read the news, to relax; but he resisted. He asked himself “What purpose does reading the news serve right now? Relaxation? I don’t remember ever being relaxed after reading news. Being up to date about current events? Well, I’ll do that towards the end of the day when my mind is more tired.” He then went outside to get some fresh air. After a 10-minute break, he returned and realized that he could complete one more task before the prayer. He started the task with bismillah and before he knew it, it was time for the prayer and the task had been complete.

Now it was time for the noon prayer. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Adam thought about some of the wisdom of the noon prayer: the time of noon prayer, just past midday is the time of the day’s zenith and the start of its decline; the time when daily labors approach their achievement, the time of a short rest from the pressure of work, when the spirit needs a pause from the heedlessness and insensibility caused by toil, and a time when Divine bounties are manifest. Everyone can then understand how fine and agreeable, how necessary and appropriate it is to perform the midday prayer for the human spirit, as it is a means to be released from the pressure, to shake off the heedlessness, and leave behind those meaningless, transient things, clasping one’s hands at the Court of the True Bestower of Bounties, the Eternally Self-Subsistent One, offering praise and thanks for all His gifts, and seeking help from Him; through bowing one display one’s impotence before His Glory and Tremendousness, and prostrates and proclaims one’s wonder, love, and humility. He performed his prayer with great humility and submission. He was able to refresh himself with the prayer; he reminded himself of the source of the power and he reminded himself that the work between two prayers counted as a type of worship. While praying, Adam forgot all about work and his mind was rested. He made a supplication at the end of the prayer, thanking God for all the things He had given him and thanking Him for the work he had been able to complete in the morning; he also asked for help for the rest of the day and the rest of his life.

After the noon prayer, Adam continued his tasks that had not been finished in the morning. When he became tired, he took a book out of his bag and spent some time reading it as a break and then he returned back to work. When it was time for the final task on his list for that day, he remembered that the task was not due for another week, so he thought about delaying it. However, he remembered that he should not leave today’s tasks for tomorrow.

The day passed. It was a very productive day; he felt that time had expanded. Maybe, it had expanded because he had recited prayers in the morning, maybe it had expanded because he had not remained asleep at dawn, or perhaps there was some other reason. Whatever the reason was, it was a bounty from God and he thanked Him for it. Adam once again felt a great humility in front of God.

A few days passed like this. Adam would perform the night prayer on time and he would go to bed after the prayer, making supplications when he woke up; he would not sleep after the morning prayer, but rather recited supplications before he left for work. He was very happy throughout this time, but it was not easy. He felt that he did not have the same motivation or energy that he had had at the beginning. He was about to lapse again. He knew that to remain on this track would not be easy. From all his experience he knew that every time he made a resolution to adopt a new style of life, it would only last a few days. But, this time, Adam was more determined than ever. First of all, he was sick of being lethargic and all the results of this lethargy. It was destroying his life; his time was passing unused and he was not fulfilling his promises to his wife or those to God. He really wanted to put an end to all of this and he was successful for a few days. Adam was now afraid that he would revert to his former life-style. Then, he prayed: “Our Lord! Let not our hearts deviate now after You have guided us, but grant us mercy from You; for You are the Grantor of bounties without measure.”

He finally decided to talk to his wife about the situation. He explained things to her, he discussed the lethargy and that he had constantly been fighting it for so long, but that he had not been successful. It was the cause behind all the broken promises. But, this time, he was very determined; he was constantly praying and he was also looking for different sources of information to solve the problem. He also told his wife that solving this problem would not be easy and it was possible that he would revert to his old habits on occasion, more frequently in the beginning than towards the end. He asked for her help in the entire process; he asked for her encouragement and he asked her to support him lest he stumbled. His wife felt the great pain that her husband was experiencing and she also felt the great determination he had. Additionally, she had witnessed very positive changes within the last few days. She said she would always be with him. Adam also talked about the process that he was going through with his best friend and he asked for help from him as well.

Things got better with every passing day; he was stumbling every now and then, but the frequency of such events was decreasing. He was very happy about all the goodness that had emerged from the “good work and determination” and he was very grateful to God for this blessing.

Finally, this manner of life became the norm, and his earlier life-style now seemed quite unnatural. In fact, Adam started wondering why he had led such a life. He repented all those lost days and hours. He decided to help his friends who were struggling with the same problem.

He knew that merely relating his journey to his friends would not help them much. They needed to find the causes, they need to be determined, etc., but most importantly of all, they needed to take action. However, he also knew from experience that taking action and continuing it for a long time was the most difficult part and that his friends might be too weak to do so. Well, they were human beings and this is the way things are; they were meant to feel weak without the help of God, for what value is anything if we do not have prayer?

And, as a first step in helping his friends, Adam changed the tone of his prayers; the “me” was replaced with “us” and he felt his friends’ pain in his supplications. He then remembered “O you who believe! If you will help (the cause of) God, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly.” (Muhammad 47:7).

It was.

Brittany’s path towards recovery had been abruptly cut short. After three months of chemotherapy, radiation, and alternative treatments that never ended, and with a bone marrow transplant on the horizon, Brittany had unexpectedly developed a massive infection that could not be controlled. She had been doing so well, and no one saw it coming. I was told that she had passed away in the early morning hours while I was still sound asleep in my warm, soft bed. My mom was on the phone when I arrived in the office. She was equally devastated not only because Brittany was my dear friend, but because she was also the niece of her best friend. It was a close inner circle. Now someone was missing from it.

As I reflect on that horrific day over four years later, I have finally come to peace with Brittany’s tragic and untimely death, though I doubt I will truly ever understand it. Yet I have realized that we have no choice other than to come to terms with death because it is an integral part of the life process. However, I do not consider Brittany to be truly gone. I believe she lives on in so many ways, and I think that we as a society are just on the threshold of understanding life beyond death and the spiritual continuance and connection that lives on in the day to day lives of everyone who knew the deceased.

In the most simplistic terms, I see Brittany in the spirits, faces, and actions of every person’s life she ever touched. I see her in her mother and how she compassionately and gently treats other people; I see her in her sister and her never ending kindness and understanding; I see her in her aunt and her eternal optimism; I see her in the many friends she had who worked so hard to keep her memory alive within a very large high school environment; and I see her in myself when I try to embrace her passion, patience, and inner peace. She lives on in all of us and always will. I have come to believe that a person’s spirit and soul are truly separate from their earthly body; I’ll never see her smiling face again other than in pictures, but I still see her every day.

During Brittany’s brief but valiant battle with cancer, she embodied so many traits to which the rest of us can only hope to aspire. She exemplified a true sense of inner grace that I had never witnessed before in any other person. Throughout her illness, she never showed any outward signs of fear, although undoubtedly she was terribly frightened. She never complained although she must have often been in excruciating pain. She was always positive and optimistic and tried to keep a smile on her face, even though I know it must have been an incredible challenge. I knew she was struggling, but she didn’t want anyone to know. She never wanted to burden anyone, even though she was facing the biggest battle anyone can ultimately face. Brittany did not have the benefit of growing old and wise, yet her spirit is endless and inspirational. At only fifteen years old, she never even had the opportunity to graduate from high school, go to college, fall in love, raise children, and live a long life.

She was only in the 9th grade, a mere freshman in high school. So what does this say about a teenager who is selfless enough to not want to impose any pain on anyone around her when she was clearly suffering? I often wonder if she thought that she might die, even though she always said that she was going to be okay, and even proclaimed that she planned to run laps around the hospital once she was finally released. Certainly, she thought of others more than herself during this very difficult time. I sometimes wish I had talked to her about death just to know more about her thoughts on the subject; I just don’t think that she ever considered death to be an option, but I’ll never know for sure.

Yet even today I continue to feel Brittany around me, just as I see her in the all people’s lives that she forever touched. She has obviously left her earthly body, but that does not mean she is not present in the lives of those who loved and continue to love her. She had such an incredibly strong spirit and it was not in any way defined by the body that she so briefly resided in; her spirit remains while it has also moved on to its next destination, no doubt to find a higher purpose. She will never truly be gone, nor will the people who knew her and loved her ever let go of what she represented and the joy she brought to their lives.

What ultimately defines a person’s spiritual being both in life and in the afterlife? Is the earthly body and spirit a completely different entity from the heavenly spirit or does it represent an ongoing continuum? Does a person’s spirit die just as the body dies? I contend that it does not because the spirit is never something you can reach out and touch. It is real, but it is not palpable, even in life. You can’t see it, touch it, taste it, hear it, or physically feel it, yet you can sense it. A person’s spirit forever defines their goodness or lack thereof in some circumstances, their impact on other people’s lives, and the innate individual qualities that make that soul unique.

A person’s spirit is not finite by any means, but rather it is all encompassing. It is the inherent essence of the soul of an individual, whether living or deceased. Could anyone truly claim that the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. is dead and gone after his inspirational, albeit abbreviated life and his infamous words, “I have a Dream”? Conversely, doesn’t the spirit of Adolph Hitler similarly still exist in the families that continue to mourn the atrocities endured by the victims of the Holocaust? A spirit is not limited by life or by death, by good or by evil, nor by a moment in time or by eternity.

In life, Brittany was indeed unique and someone many would consider to be a refreshing and optimistic soul, and certainly she continues to be the same years after her passing. No one ever had a negative thing to say about Brittany, even in an often catty high school environment. She was never among what many would consider the “popular” crowd; rather, she hung with members of the Anime Club. She was generally happier reading a book than going to the latest movie. She was quiet and introspective, scientific and analytical, not one interested in parties, dating and high school football games. Wherever she is today, I envision her working with the angels, perhaps on mathematical and scientific innovations that may eventually benefit those of us on earth. She certainly wouldn’t be happy sitting idle. She would always need a challenge and an opportunity to use her amazing brain power. God must have needed her for a much higher purpose.

Surely her untimely death has left her family devastated and questioning why this happened, especially to such a kind and innocent young person. For those of us who knew and loved her, it obviously makes no sense, and I continue to question, but in the end, know that I will someday understand. But I know for a fact that she wouldn’t want sadness or bitterness. That’s not at all what Brittany was about. I believe that she would instead hope that we look inside of ourselves and take a harder look at what purpose we want to fulfill within our own lifetimes.

Life is inherently limited. We all know that someday it will come to an end for each and every one of us. It is very, very sad when it comes to an end prematurely; at least by our standards. But God’s standards may be infinitely different from our own, and in the end, an individual’s legacy to those left behind on this earth cannot be measured by longevity. Further, it does not matter whether a person is a John F. Kennedy, an Albert Einstein, a Mother Teresa or a small town high school student, because it is not the number of lives we are able to touch, but the spirit in which we are able to do it. As long as a life is lived with a sense of true, unabashed passion, the spirit as we know it can never be extinguished in the minds of those left behind. More importantly, for reasons yet to be understood by mere mortals, that spirit has found another place in time, another purpose to fulfill, inevitably choreographed by the most divine power.

When I graduated from high school in 2008, Brittany’s mother gave me a memorable gift. Knowing my love of music and dance, she presented me with a CD by Lee Ann Womack with the feature track being “I Hope You Dance”. The lyrics are inspirational and timeless. In part, they are as follows:

“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance –
I hope you dance, I hope you dance.” (MCA Nashville, 2000)

Brittany’s mom, whose daughter should have been in that same procession marching in cap and gown to “Pomp and Circumstance”, receiving her well earned diploma, simply wrote the message, “April, I hope you dance!” At that moment, I once again felt Brittany’s eternal presence.

There is without a doubt a higher plan, in my opinion, for every relationship we encounter on this earth. Brittany and I will see each other again someday, and I have no doubt that she will still have that beautiful, inspirational smile on her face. Still I miss her, but I do know that she is not far away. And when we do meet again, she’ll probably just say something like, “Hey there, April, I missed you, but I told you I was just fine.”

Since that terrible day in 2005 when I found out that my best friend, who was thought to be on the road to recovery, suddenly and unexpectedly lost her battle, I have done a great deal of soul searching and introspection. Sometimes I wonder how the potential and very unselfish bone marrow donor in New Jersey felt when he heard that he matched a young high school girl thousands of miles away and could save the life of this anonymous recipient. I imagine that he must have been excited yet somewhat nervous because the bone marrow extraction from the donor is said to be somewhat uncomfortable. But then I wonder how this man felt when the statistically unlikely match failed to come to fruition. I would think that this stranger must have grieved as well, or at least this is what I want to believe.

Brittany and this unknown New Jersey resident had more than bone marrow in common. Having known and loved Brittany, I knew she was kind, loving, unselfish, and generous. Even though I never knew her potential donor, he obviously embodied the same qualities. And when I say “embodied,” I mean it in a spiritual sense. If Brittany had not suffered a massive infection, a person who had never met her was willing to undergo an invasive procedure in an attempt to save her life. That is a person’s true spirit. It is what defines us, it is who we are in life and thereafter, it is the life we live while we are here on this earth and legacy we ultimately leave behind.

April Bollig is pursuing a degree in Elementary Education at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

A conversation I had with my mother last November still haunts my dreams. My mom had been sick for several weeks with an unbearable headache, double vision, and facial numbness. Unsure of what could cause such symptoms, I turned to the 24 hour a day, 7 day a week on-call electronic doctor, “google.com,” typed in as key words “headache double vision” and started scanning the search results. My heart grew heavy and my lips trembled as I stared into the computer screen.

“So, what does it say?” my mom asked, a bit worried. I was unsure of whether I should tell her the truth. I didn’t want to scare her, but then again my mom was one of those strong types who wouldn’t go to a doctor unless it was absolutely necessary-by necessary I mean life or death.

I decided to tell her. “Well, almost every website says brain tumor. You should go to a neurologist.” But my mom was still hesitant, reluctant about enduring extensive medical testing. I thought I’d use bluntness to jolt her into action and I said,

“Dude, you’ve got to go to the doctor. This could be life threatening. What are you going to do, just roll over and die?!”

My nonchalant nature was merely a thin veil covering the deep horror which overtook me. “Death” is not something we easily associate with a loved one as dear as our mother. I could hear a disapproving voice whisper inside me, “How dare you?” chastised my ghost. “You can’t think your mom might die!” I shuddered, shaking my head to make the disturbing thought go away.

My amnesia was only temporary.

My mom did go to a neurologist, but aside from some minor hormone imbalances, the doctor could find nothing significantly wrong in her brain. So, my mom decided to go back to her usual residence in California, home to some of the best medical research hospitals in the nation, for a second opinion.

I will never forget our parting in the Atlanta airport. She was clearly in pain, slowly limping, hunched forward, head tilted downwards, and breathing heavily as even walking took great effort. “There is physically no way I can stand waiting in this line,” she muttered, referring to the security check line. She asked one of the officials if they could take her up front since she was sick, but the man just shook his head and pointed to the end of the line at the far end of the corridor.

I guess there was nothing in the rule books that taught people about mercy, so my mom took matters into her own hands, and just cut to the front, passing the first official without presenting her boarding pass and ID. The official called after her, “Ma’am, ID please?” My mom presented the required documents and then scuttled towards the baggage control, again cutting towards the front. In just a few minutes she was out of sight.

I watched helplessly. It took so much concentration to just think about how to get through security that she not only failed to initially notice the ID checker, but even failed to hug me or even look back and wave good bye. In thirty years we had not once parted without a good embrace. As I saw her place her bags on the conveyor belt and walk through the metal detector, tears began to trickle down my cheeks, blossoming into a full-blown cry.

What if this was the last time I would ever see her?! What if I had just missed my last chance to hold her close, feel her warmth, and breathe in her sweet aroma?

Again, I tried to suppress the unbearable and could hear my ghost talking. “The doctor said the MRI was basically normal. It’s probably something minor, easily fixable. She’d go see a doctor in California, they’d prescribe her a few pills, and all would be well again. She’d come back to Atlanta, take her year-old grandson to the park and push him in the swings while he laughed with delight.” I smiled as I imagined my son pop a large grape into my mom’s mouth.

That evening, my mom called me to apologize for having forgotten to hug me before she left. Her loving voice wiped out any lingering doubts I might have had. “Yep,” I told myself, “Life will be great again.”

It wasn’t.

My mom and I were extremely close; we were soul mates. We’d talk on the phone with each other at least once a day-until that fateful day when she didn’t call or return my messages. I knew something was wrong. I called the police, and after several hours of fruitless searching, they finally decided to enter her home. They found her passed out on her bed, alive, but unable to talk. She was immediately taken to Stanford Hospital’s Emergency Room.

A doctor called with the bad news, “She’s had a brain seizure, her right side is paralyzed, and she can’t talk or follow commands. Do you authorize us to intervene to save her life if her condition changes?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t image my mom crippled or on death’s door. I couldn’t imagine a world without her. I begged the doctor to keep her alive until I could get there.

Over the next few days the doctors performed numerous tests before finally coming to a conclusive diagnosis that she had a rare type of cancerous brain tumor. With an operation and chemotherapy her life could be extended for up to a year. But even in the best case, she’d probably remain at least partially paralyzed, and unable to talk or comprehend language.

I knew then that my mom was going to die. This time there were no more ghosts trying to convince me otherwise. “How could I have missed the seriousness of her situation?” I asked myself, ashamed. “She even told to you over the phone, in her soft, feeble voice, ‘I am dying,’ yet you kept closing your eyes to all the signs!” went my mental chiding.

How many Signs in the heavens and the earth do they pass by? Yet they turn (their faces) away from them!

My mother lay silent as the ventilator continued to periodically beep in harmony with each steady, rhythmic breath. She had been taken off all drugs for two days now, but still had not woken up. Many of the nurses thought it unlikely at this point that she’d ever open her eyes again.

Meanwhile, the doctors needed a decision. “It’s up to you, you know her better than anyone. Would she have wanted the operation?” asked the head of the intensive care unit. “She can’t speak for herself, so you must speak on her behalf,” he prodded.

I knew what my mom wanted. She had already told me in answer to my question, “What will you do, just roll over and die?”

“Yes,” she had said. “Death is not a bad thing; it’s nothing to be feared. Everyone dies some day. Death means finally being in peace, free from the evil of this world. If I had my choice I’d pass away in my sleep. And I wouldn’t want to live as a vegetable, either. That would be torture. I wouldn’t want to be a burden to myself or my family.”

Still, I desperately wanted her to wake up just one last time. I had to make sure she knew I was there by her side, that she wasn’t alone. I tried everything in my power to wake her up, including singing her favorite songs-something I’d never done before.

It was of no use. Finally, we decided to tell the doctors to move her into comfort care the next morning since we’d decided against an operation. That evening during dinner, however, my husband was suddenly overcome with this inexplicable “feeling” that we should wait one more day. It didn’t make sense, but maybe its providence, I thought. So we waited one more day.

The next morning, I was shocked to walk into her room to find her eyes open and her left hand grabbing at her blanket. Her eyes followed me as I rushed towards her bedside, kissing her hand with joy. “She woke up! She woke up! Can I bring my son in to see her? I want to make sure she sees her grandson one last time,” I asked the nurse.

When my husband and son arrived about twenty minutes later we held him up so that my mom could see him. Just then, my mom began to cough loudly, gasping, and squishing her face together as though in pain. The ventilator began to beep in response to the quick breaths.

“Look, it’s like she’s crying,” said my husband.

“Oh no,” smiled the nurse. “This is normal, sometimes the discomfort of the tube in the mouth can cause some coughing. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were happening for a reason. I had often chalked up happy occurrences to good fortune, never once questioning whether it was truly accidental. But this string of missed opportunities and unexplainable feelings surely couldn’t be pure happenstance. Events were unfolding in such a way as to ease the pain of my mom’s passing. I began to wonder if anything in life was coincidental.

On the earth there are signs for those whose faith is sure; and in your own souls too. Will you not then see?

No, the coughing could mean only one thing; my mom had recognized her grandson!

The next day, she was moved into comfort care so that we could be with her all the time. Slowly, she began to show signs that the end was near. First, her right eye stopped responding, next her oxygen levels dropped, later her right cheek became hot and red. I got this feeling that she might not make it through the night, so we left our son with some family friends and spent the night in the hospital. Despite our best efforts to stay awake, eventually both of us succumbed to sleep.

Interestingly, towards the morning, my husband saw a dream in which someone was about to die, causing him to suddenly awaken. The room was quiet; my mom’s snoring had ceased. Afraid that she may have passed already, he rushed to her, relieved that she was still breathing lightly. He then ran to get me and a nurse.

I watched her chest softly rise and fall. My husband began praying, while I held her hand, not knowing what else to do, nor when that fateful instant would come. I was in shock that my mother was dying right in front of me. But, I knew I had to let go.

The gaps between each breath grew longer and longer, until finally her chest fell and rose no more. I glanced at the clock on the wall, 4:55 am. She passed away just five minutes after I came by her side. If it weren’t for my husband’s dream, we would have missed her.

I am thankful that I was there at her side in her last moments with us. Not everyone is blessed with the ability to be there right until the last moment. My mom had been with me every step of the way, since the very first breath I took; and I was there with her until the very last of hers.

Still, her passing turned my whole world topsy turvy. I felt like a stranger lost in a foreign land with no way of getting back home. The irreversibility of it all really hit me during the burial. At the end, we all end up under a pile of dirt, shrouded in five feet of white cloth. As the grave digger shoveled dirt over her body, my teeth began to clatter uncontrollably, and I shivered as though I’d been locked in a meat freezer. My husband held me tight, trying to stop my shaking. But it was of no avail; I was inconsolable.

Just then I saw the cemetery staff plant three rose bushes on top of the freshly closed grave. My aunt pointed to the bushes, “Years ago we had planted a rose bush on the grave. As they dug it up, however, it split into three roses!” Three roses for the three women buried below: my grandmother, my eldest aunt, and my mother.

I stopped trembling and smiled through my tears. I think I’m getting better at reading the signs now.

Sevgi Zubeyde Gurbuz completed her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in December 2009 and currently works and resides in Ankara, Turkey.

Notes

1. Quran 15:75

2. Quran 12:105 3. Quran 51:20-21 

Based on a sensible interpretation of the cosmos and events, we considered the arrival and departure of each existence in this world very normal, a process taking place in a gentle manner; this mysterious journey instilled in us profound spiritual expansion, for it was a means of reunion, each action and replacement was like being discharged of duty and freedom from the burdens of service at the end of which await the realms of divine favors and rewards.

There may be such people even today, but those days in the past were unique, just like the people therein who were deep in the heart. They were unique in the way they deliberated on this world and the hereafter, on matters like departing for the Almighty, bidding farewell to this life, and greeting the afterlife. As they reached puberty and started developing self-awareness, a test anxiety would fill their spirits, then they would spend their days in self-accounting. Their feelings and thoughts were occupied with fear and awe, their hearts beating with love and enthusiasm, eyes seeking the divine mercy, hearts satiated with imploring, and with such feelings they would walk beyond this universe as if they were stepping into their wedding night. They were often in a state of fear governed by constant hope and alertness, for they knew this life was but temporary and short, and that all our experiences and delights are destined for termination, and the time for our appointed hour of departure is unknown to us. They were hopeful, for the road to follow is evident, the target is over there and the destination is known. Their paths were bathed in the light of inspiration by their faith and spiritual well-being, and by their vast conscience over a domain that was way beyond their physical capacity.

Unlike those unfortunate ones who cry in the pangs of having incarcerated themselves in their limited level of perception, and who observe the entire creation and all divine signs from such a narrow perspective and waste their lifetimes in the dark aisles of corporeality, believers set forth for a new dimension of life every morning and every night; they are receptive to what may descend from the beyond and they welcome any surprise in submission. Believers restore and purify any hardship or misfortune that has struck through the filters of patience, and for them such hardships are nothing less than bathing to wash off the dirt. They see the beautiful as nothing less than beauty and they deepen their perception with praise. Those things that appear ugly believers beautify with the rays of beauty from their conscience, and they pursue a colorful life.

Indeed, once upon a time, humankind experienced such a life filled with joyous enthusiasm, as if we were strolling on the vibrant slopes of the life beyond. We were informed of the beginning and the end of our life, its meaning, and what it offers for tomorrow. We knew where the thoroughfare we were on was going to reach as well as we knew the directions to our home. At times, we were afflicted by anxiety regarding our path and concerns about what would become of us; but, at the same time, with firm belief that everything was linked with His vast mercy, we fixed our eyes on the furthest limits and our inner vision on the horizon and beyond, and sent our thoughts in the direction of our inner disposition seeking His pleasure. We were not much concerned with anything other than these; we did not occupy ourselves with how events unfolded; our rhythm of action was not affected by thousands of concentric calculations in a complete correlative unity nor by developments apparently occurring in an unfavorable direction. We believed as long as we could employ our willpower up to its potential all problems could be overcome as a result of divine help. We always managed to discover contentment in our soul and proceeded on our course.

We had a powerful voice then; we had a word to utter for everyone, and our presence conveyed a deliberate message for all humanity. We regarded one another with compassion and mercy, and embraced everything and everyone with love. Satanic sparks that seldom turned up were weathered in the atmosphere of our conscience, softened, and then transformed into some sort of light and returned thus to their source. By and large, we were all at peace and breathed serenity.

Our joy and pleasures were forever, sorrow and grief temporary. If we moaned once, we woauld cheer ten times; in return for one ruin we would delight in countless joys. Like a baby peacefully sleeping in a cradle and nursed in comfort with lullabies, we were in a trouble-free environment with pure wishes and crystal-clear dreams. Concerns and anxieties were like clouds moving above us dropping temporary shade; their passing was momentary, and it was lit up all around. The days were so, and so were we . . .

Then, some kind of moth infested the spirit of our community-the beginning of this accursed period dates back a few centuries. It nibbled at the roots of the spirit and meaning that made us what we were. Heavily wounded and rotten in many aspects, it seemed almost impossible for this entity to stand by itself. Winds of opposition were shaking and eroding it while breaking its branches and causing cracks here and there, heaping heavy blows so as to kill it off. At a time when the world really needed a just, balanced, and truthful power, it was disqualified from its capacity to show direction to nations and to determine world events; its wonderful administration and influence completely faded. It was a long retreat; its voice was not heard, nor was it listened to. It kept losing rank and it was far from preventing this dragging down. It drifted toward an unknown end as it was transforming into something else while at the same time nations and communities that were once either brothers in faith or citizens under the same rule were now turned into enemies of one another.

Traditions and customs were being knocked down one by one across a wide region. Religious and national attitudes that complemented one another, an exemplary social order that had lasted for centuries, cultures that voiced the collective worldview of millions of people, the arts and the human spirit, the sense of history, all were being stripped off their soul, turning them into lifeless corpses. It was such a plague of metamorphosis under various names and titles that cast away what was local, replacing it with the junk of others. There were so many people, especially from the elite, who transformed during this rather rapid change, so that in the face of all that was happening, the masses twisted their original makeup, jumped from one fantasy onto another, and moved away from their own selves.

All these events were nothing but the death throes of a glorious civilization, humanity denying its own nature, as if peeling off its own skin, and trading its soul for some rambling notions devoid of spirit. High human virtues and ideals were being sacrificed for blind imitation.

Today, our eyes observe the strength and vigor of the human spirit, our hopes are fixed on the door of the All-Merciful that we believe is not completely closed to us, our hearts are expecting additional divine blessings, and we are fully convinced that we will revive, even though we appear like a corpse rotten for hundreds of years. If waiting is a condition, then we are ready to wait for another three or even four hundred years with this hope and faith. May our Lord, the All-Merciful Who is aware of our expectations, not make us suffer from other misfortunes.

They took their muddy shoes and heavy coats off. Dad, looking very sad, sat down on the sofa while my mom whispered something quickly to my sister before vanishing to her bedroom. I could only catch some ominous words like, “…dead…. wake…. we got to go.” My sister did not ask any questions. In no time, Mom came out of her room dressed in black, kissed me on the cheeks, and left. Dad, who up to that moment had been silently gazing at the brown carpet, robotically stood up and followed her. On his way out, he reminded my sister to lock the door.

My sister turned the key twice as if the Big Bad Wolf might knock on the door in a minute. Then she turned off the TV-custom dictates that there is no music or laughter in a mourning house. We sat there looking at each other in silence. My sister looked pitiful, so I gave her some time to digest whatever Mom had whispered to her. Meanwhile, I started to decode what my little radar had caught.

Someone is dead-no doubt about it. Since the news was given sotto voce, it had to have been a shameful death like committing suicide or being shot while stealing. Or, God forbid, it might be an awful death like being crushed by a train or chopped to pieces by a revenge murderer. Since my parents were grieving, it probably involved somebody significant to us. Could it be one of their coworkers? A relative? At this point I grew so anxious I knew I would explode if I did not ask. “Who is dead?” I asked in a trembling voice. “Dad’s stepmother,” my sister answered matter-of-factly.

The answer took me by surprise because I did not know Dad had a stepmother. I knew he had lost his mother suddenly at age six and had lost his father ten years later. I sensed a mystery concealed before me and I could have sworn my sister knew more. The question was how I could fish out the secrets my sister’s heart held so faithfully.

My sister, an ordinary eighteen-year-old, was nice to me most of the time except when I asked too many questions and messed up her drawers. She would never repeat what she knew about her friends and acquaintances, so at times I felt my sister was a mysterious person and I imagined her heart was full of secrets.

“Dad’s stepmother?” I repeated it in my mind over and over trying to define what it meant to me. I knew of only one stepmother, a pretty infamous one for that matter: Snow White’s stepmother. She was mean and cruel. Some people would rejoice at such a person’s death. Yet, everybody was sad. I made up my mind to go ahead and ask my sister no matter what the consequences. My assumptions were taking me nowhere. “Where did she live?” I asked, expecting to be hushed. “In our town,” my sister answered. “Is she nice?” I asked, then corrected myself. “I mean, was she nice?” My sister nodded. Seeing her handle my interrogation calmly, I was encouraged to ask more. Mercifully, my sister spared me all the sweating by revealing the story on her own.

“Dad was six years old when his mother died. Grandpa married again right away so that somebody would take care of his little boy. He chose to marry a close relative of his first wife. Apparently, everybody was surprised that an attractive man with a high standard of education married someone so plain and uneducated. But I guess he only cared that a relative of Grandma would treat his son nicely. He had three more children with his second wife, two girls and a boy.”

I stood there all ears, almost forgetting to breathe, listening to this astonishing revelation. Not only had I a step-grandmother, but a step-uncle and two step-aunts as well. I forced myself to stop wondering and focus on my sister, who, after taking a deep breath, went on:

“Grandfather was right. She took care of Dad so well that she didn’t make any difference between her own children and him. She continued to be good to him even after Grandfather died ten years later. She never remarried. She worked hard to make ends meet, and Dad, because he was the eldest child, helped by dropping out of high school to work full time. That was when he took evening courses and learned to be an electrical repairman.

“At twenty-six, Dad married Mom. I heard that his stepmother loved Mom and boasted to her neighbors about what a fine lady her son had married. In the beginning, everything was fine and they all lived happily together in the same house. After a while, Dad started to give less and less to the family budget and spent more and more from his pay on gifts and movie theater tickets. Mom and Dad used to like to go to the movies every week in those days.

“One night Dad’s stepmother apparently complained. She reminded Dad that she was having a hard time paying the bills. Dad accused her of being interfering and jealous of his love for his wife. His stepmother must have felt humiliated because she vowed that unless he apologized and changed his ways, she wouldn’t speak to him again. Dad insisted he had done no wrong and saw no reason to apologize. Both of them must have gone to bed feeling sore and angry at each other.

The next day, when his stepmother came home from work, most likely hoping that the new day might have helped him to see things in their true color, she found that Dad and Mom had packed up their stuff and moved out. She must have felt betrayed. The sting in her heart, I reckon, made her swear an oath that she never broke. She sent word to Dad telling him that from now on she would have nothing to do with him and warned him never to come back.” My sister stopped her narration and it felt as if time had stopped, too.

“This is too awful to be true,” I mumbled in disbelief. “Did they ever speak again?” I asked, hoping against hope. My sister shook her head. “Neither she nor her children ever spoke to our parents.” My sister continued, “They saw each other almost every day on the street, in the shops, at the stadium, at the hospital, at the post office, you name it. But they changed paths or ignored each other.” She shook her head. “Pride is such a terrible thing sometimes,” she concluded, and I could not have agreed more.

“You know, you met her once!” My sister startled me with this exciting remark. “I did? When? Where?” I impatiently looked into her eyes. “Remember the day when you hurt your knee in the park and when we were on our way back home, and you were limping, two old ladies stopped us in the middle of the road?”

“Yes, I remember,” I interrupted her. Although it had happened almost five years ago I recalled the incident clearly because that peculiar encounter had made quite an impression on me. The intensity with which one of the old ladies looked at me, the way my sister looked around as if she did not want to get caught doing something wrong, had naturally not escaped my curious eye.

“I remember, one of the old ladies kissed you on the cheeks. Then she looked at me and asked her friend, ‘Is this his youngest daughter?’ Her friend said yes and then the first lady hugged me, wiped tears from my face with a tissue, and gave me two candies. Then you pulled me away. You said we were late and our parents would be worried. I followed you but I was looking behind, waving back at the nice lady because she made me feel so special. Later, when I kept asking you who she was, you hushed me. You were angry and sorry at the same time. I even saw you wiping your eyes. I thought you were crying because she didn’t give you any candies.”

“No, silly,” my sister tried to laugh, though I sensed that the same mood of anger and sorrow had overtaken her. “I was crying,” she explained, “for all the things we missed. Every day I came home from school with our neighbor’s son, passing by their door, stopping by just to breathe in the wonderful smell of baking bread and to envy the big smile of his grandmother, knowing quite well that a cold and empty home was waiting for me to turn the key. I was angry with Dad because his pride was depriving us of a God-given right-the wonderful presence of a grandmother. Why did everyone in town just stand by and watch this tragedy? Everyone was pretending to mind their business. No one had the courage to intervene and bring it to an end.”

My sister started crying and I felt pity for us my eyes watered too. Who knows what beautiful bedtime stories she might have known, who knows what delicious meals she could have prepared, and whether she would have had the ear to listen to me-the ear my mom, who worked full time, never had.

“But why did she kiss me twice and give me two candies?” I asked, almost to myself, fearing that my sister would reprimand me for such a stupid question. “She…,” my sister sniffed trying to collect her voice, ”she worked in the only day care our town had. So she practically took care of me and our big sister and big brother as a part of her job for four whole years each. When you were born she had retired. I guess she was sad that she never got to hold you as a baby.” I could hold the tears no longer. Her soft kiss on my cheeks and her compassionate, intense look lingered in my mind. She would have made a wonderful grandmother.

The doorbell startled us, and we hurried to open the door, wiping the tears on our way. Surprisingly, my parents had returned in much worse shape than they had left. Usually close relatives of the deceased stay at the wake until dawn. My parents had been gone for barely an hour. This time Dad, soaked to the bone with rain, his face swollen red from crying, went straight to their room. Mother looked distressed too. She sat on the coach and took several deep breaths.

“What happened?” asked my sister when she realized that Mom was not going to tell us without prompting. “We were not wanted there,” Mom managed to say before she broke down in tears. I shivered as I imagined someone yelling at my parents, “Get out of here!”

“Who told you that?” my sister demanded.

“Her son,” Mom said. I could not help but note that “her son” would have been our uncle, had all this not happened.

“He shoved us out,” Mom continued, sniffing. “He told us that it’s useless to honor the dead when we had shown her no respect in her lifetime.” That made sense to me as much as I wished it did not.

“What did Dad do?” asked my sister. I was becoming annoyed with Ms. Detective. I was afraid of what was coming next. “What could he do?” Mom took a deep breath. “Your Dad stood there speechless for a few minutes. He couldn’t confront his stepbrother. No one at the wake came to his defense, so we left the house in humiliation. He wept all the way home,” Mom said breaking into tears again.

A deep sadness flooded my heart as I realized that our step-grandmother had taken with her to the grave any chance of reconciliation and that I would never come to meet my uncles and aunts. I left Mom to my sister’s questioning and went to check on my dad. The door of their room was ajar. He was sitting on the bed, his back bent, his gaze fixed on the floor. I wished I could read his mind, but more than anything I wished I could console him. But how could I?

There sat my dad, a middle-aged man, proud father of a son and three daughters. There sat my dad, a diligent follower of politics who never missed the evening news in the election season. There sat my dad, a faithful patron of the coffee shop, and a big fan of soccer who could never get enough of the Brazil team at the World Cup. There sat a man sobbing like a child with his head between his palms. I wondered if he felt like a loser. For some unknown reason I could not side with him, although my heart was breaking with pity. And suddenly, I realized that I had spent the whole afternoon utterly fascinated by my sister’s account of my parents’ sins. Immediately, I felt sick and afraid. Did disloyalty flow in our veins? Was that to be the inheritance in our family?

Right at that moment Dad raised his head and looked at me with an expression pleading for something neither I nor anybody else breathing on earth could grant him: forgiveness. Avoiding my reproachful look, he raised his fists and started hitting his graying temples, shouting painfully to himself, “Ungrateful, Ungrateful!”

I could not stand watching him any longer. I backed out and closed the door. And at every rapid beat of my heart I prayed to God to have mercy on us all for what we had done to our parents and to show us a way of atonement.

Mirkena Ozer had her major in Turkish language and literature. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

And this world’s life is naught but a play and an idle sport and certainly the abode of the hereafter is better.
An‘am 6:32

Mr. B was an old medallion maker who took great pride in his art and craftsmanship. He had been making medals since his youth and he never missed any opportunity to boast about his fine engravings and embellished handiwork. As he had indisputably proved his worth in the small city in which he lived, in these last years of his life he was enjoying the pleasure of choosing his own assignments. He would create medals only for the more glorious events in which many people had worked and struggled, in which more time and money had been spent: he would only make medals for occasions that influenced more lives.

The reason for his inclination to the more important jobs was not financial. While trying to find original designs for these medals, Mr. B often found himself imagining how the winner of the event wanted to have the medal, how this person had endlessly practiced, sacrificing emotional and carnal desires; and here, the medal maker was sitting above the entire crowd, designing and polishing that object which was the goal of all this effort. He almost saw himself as a mythical figure, a ring-giver, who with great ease was able to give all the contenders a motive to live, and one who would give immense happiness to a few.

In this way, Mr. B too gave a special meaning to his own life and he would perhaps have gone on living this way if it weren’t for that pesky invitation he had one day received. He read the whole letter in a single breath; at first he could not decide if he should be happy or worried. This was a summon to a competition between all the medal crafters throughout the country; once and for all it would establish the person who made the most handsome, most elaborate, most original medal designs. Mr. B didn’t even read the awards; he only glanced at the deadline and rules. At that very moment he instantly knew that he would join the contest, even though this could jeopardize his position in his small city. If he didn’t join, everybody would think that he had already accepted defeat. On the other hand, deep inside, he knew that winning this contest was extremely difficult. He had had the chance to see the medals prepared by other artists in other cities during his visits and he often found their work to be superior to his own in a way that is only evident to the eye of a professional. He found himself profoundly hating whoever had come up with the idea of this contest. For a few days he silently walked the streets of his small city. Then he closed himself in his workshop and didn’t come out for a whole week; this left him only enough time to pack up and travel to the capital city with the new medal he had made.

On the day of the contest all the best medal makers in the country filled the finest room of the palace in the capital city. The artists, one by one, came forward and presented the best work of their lives to the head of the committee. All of the medals were spectacular pieces of skill and artistry. However, Mr. B didn’t even peek at any of them: he had developed a series of superstitions while he was preparing for this competition. He had started to believe that seeing any other medal in this period might harm his belief in himself, and this would inevitably affect his chances of winning. Moreover, he never once looked at his own medal after he had put it in its container in his workshop. He somehow thought that the initial place it was made had a spirit and the medal should see the daylight again only here at the competition. Mr. B slowly walked through the crowd to the committee to present the greatest achievement of his life; his heart was pounding and his movements were almost rehearsed and automated. He briefly introduced himself and left the medal for the detailed examination of the shrewd and astute group of experts.

The results were to be announced the following day and until that time Mr. B couldn’t bring himself to think of anything but the contest, even though he genuinely tried to enjoy the many delights the capital city offered. The award ceremony was dazzling; at the end the three best medal makers of the country were to be declared. Just before the names were read, Mr. B finally made peace with himself and decided that even if he were awarded third place, he would still be content. However, his name wasn’t read for third best. All of this was happening too fast. He felt an instant joy that he wasn’t third and calmly realized if his name was going to be called now, it would mean that he is even better than what he had decided to settle for. At the same time, he intuitively knew that there were only two awards left and his chances were much less each time a name was read. While contemplating this fact, the second best medal maker was called: it wasn’t him. Mr. B wasn’t thinking anymore. He could only feel a certain pity for himself and a slight envy for the second best medal maker. He glanced at the entire room filled with best medal makers of the whole country. He should have worked harder, or he should have known his place; he shouldn’t have deluded himself with such pretense! He had a feeling that everybody was looking at him now; then his name was called, he stood up and among the tumultuous applause and cheers he walked up to the stage. There, Mr. B was given a golden medal for his achievement in medal making. The moment he saw the medal around his neck, he felt a funny understanding in his heart.

Years passed. As an ironical finale, the players, the medal makers, and the medal maker who made the medals for the medal makers ended up with the same fate; they were buried in the same row in the same cemetery. Their eyes opened to larger truths and their hearts constantly going over the lives they led, occasionally when they remembered the vainness of the games they had played, they couldn’t help bitterly smiling.