Prolific Immigrant

The most important lesson I took from 2011, and which I have taken from every single year past is that life really and truly is precious cargo.

I am not one to begrduge another person’s hangnail, but rather prefer to nudge them to look at all of the amazing and incredible things they have, least of which is: life. Every single moment within our lives, even the most brutal pain has to be accepted as precious.

Sidebar: Some people reading this have been sexually assaulted as children. I can’t touch that, nor would I ever say that those moments are “precious.” What I can say is that YOU are precious, I am so grateful for your presence in my life, and I love you with every bit of my being. And if I were there when this was happening to you, I would have taken a crowbar to the men who inflicted such pain on your precious selves.

The darkest moments of this past year have been emotional, and I have been able to lift myself out sometimes alone, often times with the aide of the incredible individuals I have in my life. I do not live in an abusive environment, nor an oppressive one, nor a monetarily challenged one, alhamdulliLah. So really and truly, I am blessed, and everything above and beyond what I have is icing on the most decadent cake I can imagine.

A lot of the time, people send emails asking me how I do it. Specifically, “you seem so happy. How do you do it?” In short, here’s how…with the most important caveat that: it’s not fkn easy…
1. Most of my time is spent laughing at myself.
2. I am fiercely devoted to those I love, and with that comes a reciprocity (if not from them, then the Universe brings it back my way in some other incarnation). None of us are sovereigns, except the assholes.
3. I am genuinely happy for the success of others.
4. I give myself no more than three days to deal with a trauma. I figure that if we are to mourn death only three days, there is nothing in this world which should extend beyond that.
5. I struggle to ensure that there is neither hate nor bitterness anywhere in my heart. (Not even to those who hate me and tell me that my Faith is anything short of its beautiful self. Where these people are concerned, I only feel sorry for them, because hate is an ugly disease of the heart whose toxicity imbibes all aspects of who we are and how we see the world.)
6. I learn. Not knowing about something is another way of saying “I have been presented with a choice” to either fear it, or to learn about it. I choose the later.
7. I am never made happy by the pain or hurt of others, because I’m just asking for trouble if I do this (but this shouldn’t be confused with being pleased that someone has gotten theirs, deservedly, because everyone reaps what they sow, in time.)
8. I never allow my happiness to hinge on the hurt or pain of someone else. I am always amazed at how sick people are, who do this.

And most importantly…
9. I believe that Allah has my back. Simple. Even in the darkest recesses of pain, and even when I am angry with Him, and shaking my fist at Him and demanding WHY? and only coming up with “Because Allah knows best,” at the end of the day, within the corner of my little heart, I know He’s got me in the palm of one hand, and covering me with the other until there is no more from which to be protected. (And I floss.)

If you would like to share your own pillars of happiness, please do, as I would love to learn from you.

With the above, there are always things to change, to learn, to hone, to learn, to learn, to learn and to learn. As you enter into 2012, I am going to leave you with a lecture from my most favoured teacher. He speaks about our responsibility to our lives as precious cargo, and also our shared responsibility to our fellow humans, and to animals. You will be riveted. Trust.

Happy 2012.
You all are loved.

‘Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the one who is most righteous.’ (Quran 49:13)

Each one of us defines “righteous” in a variety of ways, right down to the simplest thing, like helping someone on the street, or taking care of a best friend. Some people will argue that people should fend for themselves, and if someone is on the street, it’s because they deserve to be on the street, and so to help them is not to behave in righteous manner, but rather it is to enable.

The people who would argue the above are definitively: assholes.

Do you remember when you were growing up and people asked you what you wanted to be when you were older, and you said: “living on the street” or perhaps “sleeping beneath a bridge”?

No? Me either.

What about when you answered: “being alone!”

Yeah. Me either.

My mum tends to travel over the holidays, and most of my friends are usually out of town or at family Christmas dinners drunk and working out their issues. Basically, I have always been — more often than not — alone over the Christmas holidays. Almost everything is closed and a girl can only read so much and see so many films over the course of a few days.

Thing is, even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, I do love all of its accoutrements. On some level, the holiday resonates with me, and so when I’m alone, that resonance turns into sadness a little bit. I still remember last year, no one was even on-line or on bbm or over text. And I am someone who is very comfortable being alone, so imagine how bad it had to be for me to actually feel like it was too much.

A couple of tips for the holidays, which you should carry with you throughout your year if you can. (And please note, I am not at all comparing being inside, safe and sound and warm but alone, with being on the street. I am merely trying to make a connection for those of us who would never see a connection between ourselves and those who too many of us ignore on the streets.)

First, it’s the easy one: don’t leave your single friends alone. Surely, you must have room for one more. Surely.

To clarify: Possess enough emotional fkn intelligence to note that if they’re there for you 360 days a year, now is not the time to leave them alone. Even a simple “thinking of you” text message is better than nothing. And unless your fingers are broken, you need to do this, you morons.

There’s something really sad and alienating about being left alone at a time of year that’s meant to be about family, love, peace, and forgiveness. There is a reason that the highest rate of suicide happens around this time of year. And this is the time of year you are meant to be thankful and loving — that doesn’t only hold true for your blood kin. Don’t forget about us who may not have family in the City, or who may not normally celebrate Christmas and so are de facto outside of the circle of Noel.

Go through your friend list in your head, and you will find at least one person who fits this description. Now, make a point of reaching out to them and engaging them. Trust me on this one. Please.

Second, it’s the harder one, the more important one of this article: if a regular everyday Maha with a full social schedule and a loving circle of friends can feel so alienated and sad over the holidays, imagine someone who lives on the street. Imagine someone who is already alienated and troubled. The majority of homeless have come from childhoods of abuse — more often than not, it is sexual. Another great majority has mental health issues.

Don’t ever kid yourself about this fact: No one wants to live on the street by choice.

Here’s something I came across recently, which is amazing, and what better way to teach your children about righteousness, than by leading by example? (Thank you, MJ.)

“Guerilla Giving,” started (and still happening) by a garbage man in Edmonton:

Each year his family & friends fill backpacks for individual homeless people
In each backpack they include:
A wallet with $25.00 cash (optional if you don’t have it).
A personalised Christmas card, signed by the family.
Christmas treats and snacks or granola bars & lipton soup.
Things like long-johns, gloves, hoodies, tea light candles, thermos, toiletries.
They target individuals, not those in groups.
They avoid churches and shelters, as they want to give with no pre-condition.
They always shake their hand, or hug them, and wish them well before they leave them to open their packages.”

You don’t need to do this at Christmas. In fact, you don’t need a reason to do this at all, except maybe the active choice to be thankful for your shelter. To be thankful for your food. To be thankful for your ability to have a Christmas tree, at the foot of which your family sits. To be thankful that you were not abused. To be thankful that you do not have a reason to be on the street. To be thankful that you can purchase a backpack and fill it.

And aren’t these reasons truly in the spirit of Christmas? More so than the twenty gifts beneath your tree?

You don’t need to do this at Christmas. But I am placing my bets on this time of year, when people are meant to live within the spirit of this holiday, and I am betting that you may be a little more open to the above suggestions today than you would be on a random day in April.

I guess this coming year, maybe our resolutions should be on a foundation of: I resolve to not look away.

Happy holidays dear readers. Thank you for sharing your stories and your hearts, for uplifting mine when it has been prostrate on the ground, confused by Heaven’s will. May your season be filled with love, light, and warmth. And may you have the generosity to share these things with those less fortunate.

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Photo from FinancialJesus(dot)com.

In The Hands of God from Mustafa Davis on Vimeo.

At a time when y’all are preppin’ to throw down some cash in the name of Baby Jesus (♥ + peace be upon him), please consider extending your definition of family to include those whom you have never met, like Leford Kamoto. If you donate over the coming near three days, via the The Big Give, they will double your donation.

Also, please remember that while you spend many a night feasting this coming month, there remains a famine in East Africa. For those of you in Canada, you may donate through:
Oxfam
Human Concern International
or
CARE

Peace and love to you and yours.

This is one of the most amazing things I have seen in a very very long time. I just can not tell you how hard I love this, or the message within.

For me, the messages being:
1) You can not judge a book by its cover (which signals the very critical belief within Islam that only Allah is the Judge, as He is the only one who sees into the hearts of wo/man).
2) That all roads lead to Allah.
3) Islam as inclusion rather than exclusion. Which, I believe, is the message of each of the great faith traditions, until they are manipulated at the hands of humanity to meet political, class, gendered, and / or power ends.

“Since masculinity is defined through separation while femininity is defined through attachment, male gender identity is threatened by intimacy while female gender identity is threatened by separation.” -Gilligan

Women are defined through attachment.

Yesterday, I wrote that there is this thing which weighs me down. And yesterday, this very thing crushed me. This is something that happens from time to time, only yesterday was the first time I chose to write about it. Always and unequivocally, it is triggered by a conversation about marriage with my family. The last time it happened, I didn’t write about it, and instead spent eight days, evenings in bed falling asleep at 8pm. I promised myself I would never let that happen again, because my life is so f/cking blessed as is without a man and a stretched uterus and what a luxury that this is what depresses me, right?

Now. Because it is only when I understand things that I can put them to rest, and because I understand things best after I have written about them, I put fingers to keyboard and wrote about it.

Subsequently, I was overwhelmed by the love that people chucked at my head, and the incredible amount of women whose private messages amounted to shared war stories: “I hear you. I understand you. I too have had to fight this battle,” and also to the slightly more hysterical ones who wrote: “I hear you. I understand you. PLEASE DON’T GET MARRIED BECAUSE OH MY GOD I WANT YOUR LIFE AND TRUST ME YOU DON’T WANT MINE!!!!”

Two particular shout outs: First to SW who sent me statistical information on how most women who are murdered, are murdered at the hands of their spouses. Second, to JJ who very clearly hates her own children, and managed to make this hatred hilarious.

The bottom line is, I am relatively accomplished.

Measured by the same stick used to measure a successful man:
an excellent job and publications,
an exceptional higher education in an extremely difficult M.A. program,
property,
savings,
etc
I am well beyond accomplished.

Measured by the same stick used to measure a successful female:
wife,
mother
I am not so accomplished.

Couple the above measurements with my culture (not to be confused with my Faith), which says that completing our Faith is half of our deen (religion). Said another way: If unmarried, you are incomplete.

Here’s the reality: Islam does not discriminate.
And because I am a Believer, and God knows best, there is no way in hell that God would create such a discriminatory hierarchy within Islam, because Islam is the un-gendered discourse. There is the male, there is the female, and then there is the divine which is genderless.

In fact, there are 99 names of Allah, and the one to which Muslims refer to most, is al-Rahman (the most merciful), within which is rahm (womb). Reflect on that for a second, then get back to me.

To discriminate means to sideline and marginalize those of us who — for whatever reason — have not yet been married, or who never get married. And this is not my Faith.

And if the above logic isn’t enough for you…then how about…
Those who get married and then abuse their partners?
Or those who get married and then cheat but never get found out?
Or those who get married and then divorced and never marry again?
Have they completed their deen more so than those who simply never get married?

The f/ck it does.

As to the “science” which places all women at a disadvantage sooner or later, then to you I send a big fat hey! Remember the time you thought the earth was flat? Or the time you proved that “white people” were better? Or when you were adamant about the classical elemental theory? Or that time you believed ether was a carrier of light waves and radio waves?

One last time: Allah does not discriminate, and on any day, I will gladly take on anyone who speaks to the contrary.

Society however? Men and women will gladly create such a hierarchy, if only to make themselves feel better, while making others feel less. And men, as has been proved time and again, will decry it as their fitrah to shun the women with whom they are most compatible for those whose t/ts sit higher. But God, my God, the God who does not discriminate, and the God who does not favour one gender above another? He would never.

Those of you who believe that He would, then you need to re-situate and re-evaluate. And you need to ask yourself what part of your nafs it is that your perspective feeds, because my guess is it ain’t your piety.

So on most days I believe that, and I internalize it at a much louder frequency than the other side of that coin. But yesterday, the other side took my feet right out from beneath me.

Usually, unlike yesterday, and because I do believe that Allah knows best, I believe that whatever He has in store for me, it will be precisely so that I might reach my full potential. And the reality is, that my full potential may have absolutely nothing to do with marriage or having a child.

To be even more frank, looking at nine out of ten couples around me (Muslim, Arab, and not), on most days, I am pretty relieved I am not married. Because men? Well…they’re not all they’re cracked up to be when they perceive a woman disrespectfully as their property. And I would hazard that less than 5% of all men carry women in their hearts as Allah intended and instructed.

I wanted you to know this, because so many of you are worried about me. And though I was desperately sad yesterday, I am like one of those Bozo the Clown inflatable bop toys, filled with enough air to bounce back harder and faster than most. Only, I am prettier. Obviously.

Thank you.
Love you.
Owe you.

This morning, I woke up an underachiever.
Who still has not accomplished much of anything worth discussing or worth feeling good about.

This morning, I woke up worthless.
A useless bit of space not contributing to anything, or adding any sort of value to the lives of those around me or to my own life.

This morning, feeling like sh/t, I walked to work wiping tears, and catching my breath and repeating over and over and over “Allah knows best.”

And this morning, I thought about how I every day fight to live my life doing good and being good and respecting the rules and living within a toxic-free heart, and I do it out of nothing more than a love for Allah. And when I fail, it is because I am short on strength, not because He is ever short on Love and Guidance.

And this morning, I woke up confused by those who have not lived well and yet, they have been graced with the one thing — the only thing — I wish to have.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about that one time my cousin told me that women who don’t have children? Something changes in the composition of their brain. That they’re not “normal.”
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about the biological imperative that men wave around: That they are naturally built to be attracted to young women.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about the fact that I have loved wrong but at the right time, and loved right but at the wrong time.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about all of the times I have been told don’t laugh so loud, have less of an opinion, pretend you don’t know, don’t argue even if he’s wrong, be less of what you are, look to the floor, do not aspire, stop at a Masters degree. Because most of the men of my culture? They do not like these things in women.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking how everything above culminates into one single reality: That I have not yet found a partner with whom to play scrabble. And because I do not want a man of my culture, but rather a man of culture, because the men of my culture have made me feel less, too old, too strong, too opinionated, too Western, too this and too that, then this must mean I do not really and truly cross my heart and hope to die want to find my scrabble partner.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up recalling the advice that I should just get married, get pregnant and who cares about the rest? Because there are only two measures to successful living: A partner in my bed, and a used uterus.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up fighting all that I hate and all that I have internalized, thinking how I carry a weight so heavy that it crushes me on days like this, and on top of my own expectations I must also bear the weight of the expectations of my family because I need to be crushed a little more.
But Allah knows best.

Because Allah knows best.
Because Allah knows best.
Because Allah knows best.

So this morning I woke up battling myself, half as written above and half encased in “Allah knows best,” a suit of armour, a mantra of internalized glue to hold me together.
AlhamduliLah.

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The follow up article to the above is: Alright Bein’ The Single Non-White Female. (Trust.)

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Photo from employscoop(dot)com.

I have known some women who — while in the throes of preparing for their weddings — have praying mantis’d their partners.

I have never been a fan of weddings. In fact, I am among the few women who loathe weddings.

As a little girl, I imagined crossing the world with a partner in adventure; I did not imagine a wedding, but rather being a part of a team. I imagined calling my parents with the great news, and then assuring them I was not pregnant as response, that I had in fact waited until marriage to get down.

Truth be told, I have never been drawn to wedding dresses either, though maybe the tiara (which, I mean, I could wear anywhere). When I thought of partnering, I thought not of the wedding, but rather of the beautiful man who gets my mind and wants to raise babies with our shared value system while we make one another laugh. Occasionally we fight, and then he apologises. Obviously.

That said, I have always wanted a ring. I have always wanted that plain boring traditional gold band. Which I love so much, and which I have always wanted to see on my hand, knowing that it is from a man who has chosen me to be his booty call for life, because that’s just the kind of romantic ideal to which I aspire.

But then recently, my world was dislodged.
B informed me that the ring situation? It is not a Muslim tradition.
My father confirmed this, and then laughed when I became visibly upset.
In fact, really very devout Muslims do not wear bands.
(CATHOLICS!! CALL ME!! (I am totes single, and I heart Jesus (blessings and peace be upon him).)

Listen, I know what you’re going to say, that just because it is a Christian tradition, it doesn’t mean we can’t adopt it. And we have, in fact.
But I am still stressed out entirely by this news, because I can not un-know it, now that I know it.
It’s not a sin; so it’s not like if I request a ring, I will burn in hell. But still, this really upset me.

I can not explain to you the ‘why’ of it, only to say that now that I know it is not a part of Muslim tradition, I feel dumb for wanting it. I feel foolish in my hope for a little slim gold band given to me by my partner, and I can not get over this impasse, because I want to carry something tangible from my man. I want to always have something on me, an anchor if you will, which grounds me to the man who calls me his woman. That may sound Neanderthal to some, but this is a solid want in me, one of the few physical things I have ever consciously wanted, in fact. And trust me, I am not a “wanter,” I have never been a big consumer, opting instead for experiences rather than things. But this? This is different.

And it may have to do with my parents being divorced. Before which, my father gave my mother a little golden ring with a heart on it, inscribed on the inside was that he loved her. This ring she gave to me after the divorce, and I wear it on a chain around my neck; a chain which is never removed, a chain on which there is one other ring and Allah. For the longest time, I wore this ring hoping that one day I would be able to give it back to my mum.

Even though their marriage has dissolved fully, and even though there will never ever be reconciliation between them and I will never be able to hand this ring back to her, the ring still represents something extremely visceral and tangible to me, the daughter of this divorce. Bottom line is, at one point, this ring was real, and so were the sentiments inscribed within.

Although perhaps? Perhaps I should aim for a date with a man before I start worrying about the specifics of what he will / will not let my infantile side have so that she may not pout every time she looks down at her left NUDE hand. And we all know — nudity in public is haraam.

Boo.
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Photo courtesy of the brilliant Cathy Thorne, who gave the world Everyday People Cartoons — Cartoons about women, and the people who love and annoy them.

There is a very strange inclination in the human situation; we default to exclusivity. Building bridges, mending gaps, shortening distances between ourselves is not an act most of us perform wilfully. Rather, we are more comfortable sitting in a state of exclusion, preferring to define ourselves by what we are not, rather than the commonality within. It’s the baseline of Otherness.

There’s a key element missing in our treatment of one another, which I believe is the contributing factor to this wilful exclusion: respect.

So many of us don’t care enough to learn about one another, and so within that created void, what we are really saying is “I don’t respect you”, “I don’t care enough to know you to understand you”.

Extend and elevate this thinking to something as personal and as intimate as Faith.

Islam was premised on this notion of respecting others – one of the core principles of our faith is to accord full respect to every religion which has belief in God as its focal point. A shining example of this is a hadith about the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), who in the year 10 H, gave free access to his mosque and full consent to the Christians to celebrate their religious rites within this mosque, although their adoration of Jesus as “the son of God” and as Mary “as the mother of God” was fundamentally at variance with Islamic beliefs.

Did you catch that? One of God’s Prophets did not try to convert, change or annihilate another great Faith tradition; instead, he honoured it by bringing it into his home and allowing it to exist as is.

Too many in this world continue to be told that they are better. Taught that they will go to Heaven while most Others will not. Generations kneaded with disrespect instead of encouraged to build bridges.

What heartbreak and shame we have brought to this earth.

Connecting Islam to earlier revelation
We no longer have either the original text of the Torah, nor of the Bible. Instead, we have translated versions of both the Hebrew and Aramaic texts re-written at different times by men and according to the political, gender, social and economic situations at that time. For believers, where there once existed the literal word of God, this is no longer the case.

Contrary to that, Muslims believe that the (Arabic) Qur’an has never been touched; the Arabic word within, from the moment it was uttered by Gabriel to Muhammad (pbuh), remains as is. This, for Muslims means there is an unequivocal purity to the text – and so, this bring us to another fundamental tenet of Islam, which is that Judaism and Christianity – no matter that the texts may have been altered by men, their original divine writ comes from one same God, Author to all.

As such, any core element of Islam was once too a core element of the earlier Christian and Jewish original texts. (In laymen’s terms, an omnipotent and omnipresent God does not change His mind.)

The fundamental Muslim belief, then, is that all must accord full respect to every religion which has belief in God as its focal point, is also a core element of Judaism and Christianity.

Bridges today & tomorrow
To reiterate; this respect which we do not afford one another at all times, if any of the time, is a respect which is in fact a necessary means to execute properly one’s actions within the dimension of any one of the three Abrahamic faith traditions.

Sadly, and most notably in 2011, very few of us afford this principle room and space within our lives because we don’t care to, we are too scared, and / or we are more comfortable believing that We are better than Them.

Building bridges is a choice; it is a choice at every single turn. The next time you hear something about any Faith that you may not be familiar with, you will have this choice to seek out more knowledge and understanding in an effort to build a bridge.

Not finding that similarity, remember that bridges aren’t only built where similarities exist, but they offer a space where people can meet and say “we are not the same, but within that difference, I respect and honour you still”.

I hold fast to my belief that the respect we extend to others is a direct reflection of how much we value and respect ourselves; choose wisely, friends.

(Godspeed!)

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Image courtesy of Planet Ware.

To Mothers
By Baraka Blue

To those mothers who buttered sandwiches
and lit loves lanterns when
sweet dreams turned into nightmares-
and cloaked us in radiant safety net bear hugs under covers and
sacrificed many a-night sleep like a coat over a puddle so our pillows stayed dry
and evaporated tears when we would cry, and
smiled at the clouds till they bowed gracefully to a blue sky
and answered all the times we asked, “why?”

to all those mothers who allowed faces to hide in pant legs
when we were shy
from strangers or neighbors or distant
family members who just wanted to say, “hi”
and who explained with true amazement
the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly

to those mothers who peanut buttered sandwiches,
and read books… over.. and over… and over again.
until she could noose Dr. Seuss
but when that, “please, mommy, please” eyes plead mouth squeezed chubby cheeks… gapped teeth
her heart melts and she reads….
just one more time.
and those words become sweet in her mouth because that warm
ball of innocent trust in her
curls up on her shoulder and she knows no sound sweeter than hearing him breathe.
and when the breathing gets deep… she looks deep into that glowing innocence and her heart weeps with overwhelming mercy-
for she is accessing the feeling nearest to God a human being can experience.
Love.
unconditional mercy… compassionate love.
true selfless, gentle, nurturing, life giving, soul cleansing, spirit raising,
Love.

for all those mothers who buttered sandwiches
and taught young boys in a society so sick and deprived of Love- to Love
and young girls to find Love deep within themselves and watered seeds to full flown flowers unfolding petals gracefully in concrete habitats and old rusty ramshackle shacks in any desert or countryside anywhere and everywhere that mothers…
butter sandwiches
or split coconuts, or make curries, or milk goats,
or steam rice, or warm bottles on stoves, or microwaves,
or hang clothes on lines in the sunshine

this is for those mothers…
who raise children to be lovers
and let youngins hog all the covers
and go to sleep last
making school lunches
and wake up first making breakfast and assembling outfits
who struggle and strain and bear the pain and don’t complain…
but smile.

this is for mothers
who had to be fathers…
and mothers….
and had to hide tears because there was no time for her own
when she was wiping away everyone else’s
this is for mothers… who never knew selfish
and never felt they deserved a congratulations, or a celebration, or a high station, or a standing ovation
but you do….
all of you.

and this is for mothers who bore abuse…
both physical and mental… from men who…
had mothers too… who raised them like you
but forgot what you taught…
and this is my pledge.
I promise I will not. ever. forget.
for every woman is a potential mother… and is a daughter who was an innocent ball of trust
who was held by a mother
who buttered sandwhiches…
if she was lucky.
and if not, all the more reason to treat her
like a mother would treat her….
who loved her
and peanut buttered sandwiches.

and this is for my mother. the one i owe love to.
because you are the one i know love through.
you are the closest thing I’ve ever known to purity.
to sincere over-whelming, overpowering, unconditional love and mercy over flowing
from your heart through your eyes when you look at me.
everything good in me
is from you.
and it is such an understatement to say….
but it is the most powerful thing language can display….
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.

Every day is mothers day. Happy Mother’s Day

Love,
your baby boy

If you are Muslim, I need you to today please read Al-Fatiha for a little baby named Youssif, only three months, flown up to heaven this early morning. If you are not Muslim, please send your love in an easternly direction to Gaza, to first-time mum named Ola and first-time dad named Salaam.

Ola is my baby cousin, and I didn’t think my heart could break this hard or this much for a little person I had only seen in photos. This is my family, and I need you to give her your heart today. Thank you. Love you each and all.

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