Digital Rabbit Hole

                        “The Talk” by Dale Innis on Midjourney

                       

Please Press Play to Hear me recite it to a beautiful song by Ilham Al Madfai

“I cried because I had no shoes …..

It was 1958….
at eleven years old I was sure I was the only one to lose my father.
Everywhere I looked, all my friends had two parents, but I had one.
The grief was profound, mixed with much unwarranted guilt
that somehow I had killed him, I fell into a deep depression .

On Thanksgiving, the teacher was saying how we ALL
had so much to be thankful for..
She began  giving examples … our  lives, our  health, and our parents…
When she said “our parents” I felt a bayonet had spilt my chest wide open
I got up from class and I started running, and I ran all 6 miles  home .

I didn’t pray much in those days, I felt God had abandoned me.
I felt somehow chosen to be the one to suffer,  and I cried out “Why me?”
In this state I met a new girl who had come to our school, at the end of the year.
She was quiet and withdrawn and knew no one.
She had that disadvantage of trying to fit into a classroom full of strangers
Something about her, drew me to talk and  I welcomed her to our class .

I sensed in her a sadness, that went beyond shyness and I was drawn to her.
We became friends and my friends became hers.
Very soon after we found ourselves at a pajama party one Saturday night.
While the other girls were looking at magazines we started to talk about ourselves.
I told her,  my father had died a few months before, and I could not seem to get over it.

She told me she too was suffering a loss and that even though her aunt & uncle
had cautioned her to never utter a word, she felt she wanted to talk about it..
We were two preteen girls opening our hearts one night to share our grief.
She told me, one Friday night, a few weeks before, while she was at the movies,
her troubled older sister, took a gun and shot and killed her mother and father.
In an instant, she lost her whole family, her home , her school,  her sister taken away…

She came to live with her aunt and uncle, in a new city, at a new school and hopefully
just put that all behind her. The next year they all moved to a new state and a new town
and I never saw her again.
I have thought about her so much over the years, I have thought about this expression,
“I cried because I had no shoes …..until I met a man who had no feet.”

About 2 months ago, I set out to find her. I wanted to know if she were still alive,
if she remembered me I wanted to ask her one question and I wanted to say thank you.
After much searching, and the fact she had not changed her name, I found her.
She was in the US and I left a message on her machine.
When we connected again by phone, 66 years later, my question was,
“Have you had a good life?”
She answered me “Yes, I have had a good life.” I told her I had had a good one too.

We started off with trauma and loss and yet we had turned it all around, so that both
of us, in our own ways had set out on paths to the rest of our lives, and they were good ones.
I thanked her for that night in 5th grade, huddled on our beds, sharing our grief, and our tears.
It taught me a great lesson and also brought out my compassion and my gratefulness
She brought me a pair of shoes, even when she had no feet.  How could I ever forget that?

Karima Hoisan
Sept. 26, 2024
Costa Rica

* Footnote, This is a true story and I have just recently reconnected with her.  She remembered me immediately:) We have written a few emails and I do believe,  it has been a beautiful experience for both of us:)

The expression: “I cried because I had no shoes …..until I met a man who had no feet.”
These words are generally attributed to Helen Keller. However, others identify William Shakespeare and Mahatma Gandhi as the first to coin this phrase.