“Someday you must tell me,” my friend texts, “to whom I owe thanks for introducing us to one another.”
And so I answered …
“The Universe connected us. “
Here’s what happened … I was writing about Gaza and working through a lot of childhood beliefs that didn’t serve me as an adult in the present. I had nightmares of being under the rubble of bombing in Gaza. And a very wise, half Jewish half Lebanese friend @azul_souland suggested that when I couldn’t sleep I imagine myself soothing a baby who had lost their mother, or a mother who had lost their child.
That move changed everything, connecting me at a cellular level as a child, a mother, and grandmother to the Palestinian people — our shared grief and the possibility of a shared future.
One night, soothing a wounded baby in my dreams, I heard myself say, “Universe, I can do more. Give me something else to do …”
A few days later, my husband saw a very cryptic Facebook message from Gershon Baskin about a Palestinian student who needed a school to attend in the United States. I talked with the student’s brother and then texted some friends for advice. About a week later, I met the student — a brilliant eleventh grader from Gaza — on Zoom — and I helped her apply to a boarding school in the United States. Miraculously, she got a scholarship and a visa and was able to attend high school in the United States. This year, she completed AP US Government and Honors English – no easy task when English is not your first language and American history is not your own history.
Over time, I got to know the whole family; the father and mother are like brother and sister to me; their children and grandchildren are part of my everyday life. Coming from a fractured and fighting birth family, this extended family is an extraordinary gift: birthday celebrations, teaching one another about our religious traditions, sitting on the floor with books, blocks, and babies.
I asked, and the Universe answered, beyond my wildest dreams.
Each of us has gifts that we underuse, undervalue, or don’t even recognize. What are yours? And how will you use them to help heal yourself and the human community during these chaotic and frightening times?
Help them and share your story in our community!
- What are 8 things you are really good at but don’t use very often?
- Write about one of those gifts and a time it helped you make a lasting difference in someone else’s life?
- How did it change you? How did it change them?
- How can you use those gifts to help other people more?
- Who is one person you can help with one gift today?