On Mother’s Day May 10 th , 2020, my beloved mother died after a short battle with ovarian cancer. She was 77 years old. She had 38 children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; and she’s survived by 36. She died at home surrounded by most of her children, grand-children, and daughters-in-law. The room was so packed with her loving family. It was her wish to die, quickly, at home surrounded by her children and lots of prayers. And for that we are grateful. She was graceful and died with peace and love in her heart. Our hearts are full of sadness and our tears are still wet, but we are joyful that she didn’t suffer for too long. Her final hours on this earth were graced with calm, love, and prayer that sealed her well-lived and eventful life. This is part of her story. Amina Khelah, my sweet mother, was born in Yafa, Palestine in 1943. She was five years old when she and her family were displaced as a result of the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. She became an internal refugee and s...
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of shedding tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlaying our hard hearts. I was better after I cried than before—more sorry, more aware of my ingratitude, more gentle altogether. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then.” There is much sadness in me, but I don't cry, not outwardly. I often cry inwardly - and that is the hardest crying of all. For I was taught as a child not to cry. With the passage of time, and with no tears to wash away the pain, my heart had hardened and rusted inside. But the above paragraph of tenderness made my eyes mist--if only a little. "No varnish can hide the true grain of the wood; and the more varnish you put on the more the grain will varnish itself." "So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people who we most despise." "I really do not even now see what I could have done sav...
This morning I was looking forward to drinking my coffee before I had got on with doing what needs to be done to make a living and before my coffee maker had exploded spewing coffee grains all over my wife’s kitchen. The lesson learned : If you forget putting the coffee grains in the coffee maker, unless you like to confirm this mishap and let us know how things go, don’t reuse that same hot water, it’s too hot for the coffee maker to handle (at least my coffee maker). And here is a recent development: Zachary Khelah confirmed this experiment, and the results were just as deadly.
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