Naomi

While growing up, in Maryland, my best friend was my cousin, Naomi. We had loads of fun together. At her house, we used to play in the barn and climb up into the rafters, in our dresses. We'd swing on long ropes tied to rafters in the barn. We used to play above the turkey pen, and tell each other girlish secrets in our little hide-out. We played inside the goat pasture and we found a weed that tasted sour, like lemons, and we used to eat it. We played house under the pine trees at her house and we used to sit and watch her father shoe horses, because he was the community blacksmith. At our house We'd take long walks in the woods and tell each other ghost stories. We'd play with my barbie dolls and my mother would make fried meat pies for us to eat. We had sleepovers and hours of girl talk. When we were 15 years old, Naomi's family moved to Snyder County Pennsylvania. A year later, my family moved to Kentucky. We corresponded by mail for the next two or three years.
One cold winter morning, when we were eighteen years old, our neighbors came over to let us know they recieved a phone call from Pennsylvania to let us know sad news. Naomi, my dearest childhood friend, had been killed in a terrible accident. She and her younger sister had been driving their horse and buggy to work on another farm and, just as they exited their driveway, they were struck by a speeding car. Her younger sister was thrown from the buggy but she only suffered bumps and bruises, and a broken heart. So my father and some other men from our community hired a driver with a van to drive us the fifteen or sixteen hours from Kentucky to Pennsylvania to attend Naomi's funeral. She died of internal injuries.
Even though I saw her lying, cold in her casket, it never really sunk in that she is irrevocably gone. She was my best childhood friend, the one person I could tell my secrets too. She was always so kind to everyone, not just to me. Everyone liked her, even the "popular" kids in our community. There was just something special about her, she seemed wise beyond her years. A few weeks before her death she had written me a letter that said she felt as though she had somehow "failed" me, I have no idea what she meant by that. I could not remember any time when she had failed me, she has always been the best friend I ever had. Other people said that she had also written them strange letters in the weeks leading up to her death. It seemed as though she knew she was going away soon. It has been eighteen years since her funeral and I still miss her. More than anything, I want to see her again.

Recurring Dream in Thunder Storms

When I was a child, less than ten years old, I used to have a recurring dream every time there was a thunder storm. I had the same dream every time. I dreamed that my brother and I were playing on a very old and rusty swing set and nearby were some very sickly looking plants with tiny, pale, colorless flowers on them. The playground was like the one we used to play in at our small private Old-Order Mennonite country school. Only the playground in my dream had no grass. It was dry and dusty, and the school house was very,very old and run down. In my dream I always heard a roaring sound, like bomber jets. Then an enormous, roaring black cloud would approach me and my brother and obliterate us, and everything in its path.

I have never had this dream interpretted by a person who has knowledge about the symbolism in dreams. However, I have my own ideas about it's meaning. When I was 27 years old I went to Syria. It was October, 2000, and I had only taken my shahada six months prior to this trip. When I was there, I saw a playground that looked exactly like the one I used to see in my dream. It was dusty, grassless, and the playground equipment was old and rusty. I felt that the children who play in playgrounds like this one are the ones who are being obliterated by enormous black clouds. I believe I was dreaming of the wars that are now killing little innocent Muslim children who don't even have anything in the first place, not even grass in their playgrounds, or flowers in their yards.

Blaze

Once upon a time, when I was nineteen years old, my younger brother got a new horse, his coat was a bright auburn red color, hence the name. Blaze. As it turned out, we ended up wishing that Blaze would enter the blaze of hell.

Bright and early one morning my brother harnessed Blaze and hitched him to a wagon. It was not Sunday, but for some reason we were on our way to attend church services that day. I don't remember the occasion, it might have been Good Friday, because it was early in the spring. We started off, with E. driving, and myself sitting beside him. Blaze began the trip at an amicable trot, but not for long. As soon as we turned the corner to begin the long descent, down the hill from the isolated Kentucky ridge we lived on, that Blaze took off running at a dead bolt. There was no slowing him down, he ran like a demon possessed devil horse. E. and I both had the same thought at the same time, "if we go down this holler at this speed we will both be killed." So with both of us hanging onto the lines as though our lives depended on it, which they probably did, we managed to guide that demon horse across a bumpy ditch, and into an abandoned field. The field had not been farmed in ages, because their was a program that paid Kentucky farmers for not farming their land, I forgot what the program was trying to accomplish. Anyway, the field was full of brush and short bushes and hidden bumps and things.

Blaze did not slow down, he kept on as though he had super horse strength, and speed, and had no intention of stopping. So the end of the field, and a steep holler, were rapidly approaching. E. and I both envisioned our final destinations with both of us ground up like piles of hamburger meat if we arrived at the end of the field at that speed. Blaze had maneuvered over to the edge of the field by the woods, with my brother and I both still hanging on to the lines. Because of all the bumps and bushes that Blaze flew us across, the seat flew out of it's notches. It bounced around, useless, in the back of the wagon. The two of us were trying our best to stay in the unseated, wildly careening wagon.

The two of us both caught sight of the same tree at the same time, and managed to guide the wild horse close enough to the tree so that the wheel got caught. We had expected the rig, horse, wagon and all to stop there. Well, the wagon stopped there, and my brother's ride ended as expected. But Blaze and I kept going, my right foot had gotten tangled in the lines, and he was so freaked that he just broke the shafts right off the wagon and kept on going, dragging me behind him, like a tin can on a string. I don't remember much about it except I was dimly aware of the fact that "I am being dragged," then I blacked out.

My next memory was of waking up with my shawl up over my head, my dress up over my head, and my slip up over my head. I was crawling around on the ground, repeating, to myself, "my leg ISN'T broken, my leg ISN'T broken, my leg ISN'T broken..." I forced myself to stand up, but I was shaking and wobbling so bad I could not stand. I fell back down and lay there for a few minutes. Then, with every ounce of strength in my body, I started crawling again and repeating, "my leg ISN'T broken, my leg ISN'T broken, my leg ISN'T broken..." I looked up and saw my brother's face appearing between the weeds and the bushes. I guess he helped me get up, but I really can't remember.

Meanwhile, the devil horse never stopped running until he got back home to the pasture by his barn. There, he took a flying leap, cleared the fence, and started nibbling, innocently, on the grass. When my father saw that, he just knew he would find me and my brother dead at the bottom of that steep Kentucky holler. His horse had already been hitched to the other carriage, he jumped in it and whipped his horse into a furious gallop, to come and see what happened to us. Fortunately, no one was dead, we were not two piles of hamburger meat, and my brother was unhurt. I, on the other hand, had a dislocated hip, and deep brush burns from my right knee, all the way up to my hip, and along my entire rib cage, on the right side. Our neighbors had been on their way to church too, and got to the scene before my father did, because they saw the horse go flying past them, on his way back home, fully harnessed, but with no wagon behind him. So, they helped me climb, moaning and groaning with pain, onto the front buggy seat, and they took me back home. We met my father coming to look for us, so he turned around and followed us back home as well.

They helped me into the house, but I could not walk on my own, because my hip was dislocated, and I was still shaking, and in too much pain. Once I was safely lying on the couch, some people went on to church, but my father called the doctor and made a work-in appointment for me. He called one of our normal chauffeurs who had a car and made it his business to haul Mennonites and Amish to and from town on errands, since it was pretty far, and it took to long to go and come back with a horse and wagon. Anyway, the doctor examined me and she said my leg was not broken, and she also said there was no way of knowing whether I would have a blood clot or not. The muscle on my inner, right thigh had been twisted and bruised so badly that I got a large hepitoma, which is a collection of blood under the skin, at the site of the injury. It formed a large, hanging, black lump. In fact my entire thigh, from the knee to my hip turned completely black, except for a thin strip of white on the outside of my thigh. I was supposed to lay on the sofa and rest and heal, which I did for a few days. But then I had to get up from the sofa and hobble around as much as I could, with my hip getting stuck in the socket every now and then. I'd have to stop and wiggle my leg around until it popped back in place. My hip would get stuck in the joint every now and then, for years after that accident. But the main things that kept me pushing myself to get up and hobble around, initially, were:
1) an irrational fear that my stuff would rust in place, and I would be fused together like a ninety-year-old woman for life.
2) it was the first year that my greenhouse business was open, so I did not want to miss out on meeting my first customers. My mother served my first few customers, until I decided I needed to be out there to do that, hobble or no hobble, pain, or no pain.

It was ages before I would go down that hill with any horse after that. In order to avoid a panic attack, I'd get out of the buggies and walk down the holler and then climb back in at the bottom of the hill. Needless to say, we made sure that Blaze got sold to a slaughter house and turned into dog food. In other words, he went to horsey hell.

A Pony Ride

Once upon a time, when I was about eleven years old, my family traveled to Snyder County, Pennsylvania, far away from any kind of Urban or Suburban influence, where my maternal grandparents lived at the time. The place is so rural and remote, and surrounded by mountains, it's beautiful in a secluded kind of way. My mother's youngest sisters, a set of twin girls, who are five months younger than myself, and I had a blast.
One day we all decided to get the pony out and take turns riding her. One of the twins, L.1, climbed on the back of Queenie, their pony, and Queenie took off running at a break-neck speed. My aunt started crying and shouting, "Queenie, Queenie..." but Queenie wouldn't stop. Queenie took off down the little hill at the side of the house, with my Aunt hanging on for dear life. The other twin, L.2, and I ran down the hill behind her, also shouting, probably scaring poor Queenie even more.
Queenie finally stopped, after she ran underneath the clothes lines in the backyard, where my older Aunt, B., who was probably 17 or so at the time was hanging up freshly laundered clothes. The reason Queenie stopped then was because the clothes line knocked L.1 off her back when she decided to run underneath them. So there poor L.1 sat, crying on the ground, Queenie turned around and came back. She put her nose down to L.1, to see what was the matter, and nuzzled her as if to say she was sorry. So my Aunt started laughing between her sobs. Then we all went to put Queenie back in the barn, there were no more pony rides that day. We thought maybe the noise of having so many children around her at once scared her, because my younger brothers were there too.

Abuse in Amish Paradise...

This was not just a single event, but a pattern of life. I don't want to itemize the morbid details, but I still don't want to paint the picture of perfection, when it really was not all peace and productivity. While the Old-Order Amish and Mennonites have this public persona of innocence and simplicity, they are really just like everyone else. I even have an inkling that they have a higher rate of rape, child molestation and child abuse than the average American society. They have been given permission by the government to live outside the law, therefore they have no reason to fear punishment by the law, except in rare cases. Most of the time, the law enforcement and children's services are indifferent to the tragedy these children are living. I only remember one occaision that my father ever hugged me, after age three, other than that, the only time he ever touched me was to beat me black and blue.

I know of physical and sexual abuse cases in my own time, and my grandmother told me things that, when I put the pieces together I knew it has been an endless epidemic since when, only God knows. It did not start with me and my younger sisters, it has been going on for many generations, upon generations. The problem is that the church elders tend to sweep it under the rug instead of coming up with any real solutions to the problem. The girls are told to be quiet, forgive them, forget about it, don't rock the boat. I'm sure part of the reason for this is that each new generation of elders has committed these crimes themselves, in the past, if they aren't doing it any more. Therefore they fail to fathom the monstrosity of this crime, don't want to hear about the girls' pain, can't empathize, and want to keep it as secret and buried as possible. Thus ensuring that this evil crime will be visited upon the next generation, like a genetic defect.

When I was sixteen I finally told my parents what my uncle had done, again and again, from the time I was six years old, until I was almost nine. The only reason he quit then was because I got smart and made up some story, I told him, "My dad said we are not allowed to do this anymore." My father had no clue at the time, but it scared my uncle out of those dirty little crimes. Even when I finally tried to tell, my father told me not to tell him which of his brothers did it. I told my mother which one it was though. They seemed mildly concerned, but did not want to do anything at all about it. I started seeing a counselor, and my father kept on yelling at me and telling me how unnecessary that was. I kept going anyway.

I left home when I was twenty-two, and I lived with an old man, a pastor at a nearby Pentacostal church, and his wife for eight months. They provided a kind of underground railroad for me, so I could escape the hell I was living in. Their daughter-in-law used to come visit us a lot, and she knew that something was very wrong. Because my father and I were fighting a lot and he kept threatening to kick me out of the house. I kept trying to arrange to move out voluntarily, and each time I found a place to go, my father did something to physically prevent me from leaving. I was a hostage. But finally, with the help of our friend, I made my escape. I am eternally grateful to Brother C. and Sister N., for helping me land on my feet on the outside of my prison. They helped me find a job and co-signed for my first lemon, ahem, car. Sister N. took me to the social security office to get a social security card, and to an adult learning center, to get my GED. Brother C. taught me to drive, and Sister N. took me to my Driver's test. Thanks to them, and to God, a year after I left home I was 23 years old, a freshman in college, fully self-sufficient and living in my own apartment.

After I left home my mother accused me of trying to move away from God. I assured her this was not the case, I knew, in my gut that I was going to find a religion that I believed in, and that I wanted to go to college. Both of which I accomplished, eventually. I'm not sure how old I was when I began to reflect on the fact that I did not choose to become a Mennonite, that I was only a Mennonite because I was afraid of my parents, who had beaten me into it. I realized I was a hypocrite! A thing most detested by God. After I left home I went to a lot of different churches, trying to find 'The One.' I partied a bit with the friends I made in college and at work, and I wore the shortest shorts and the smallest tops I could find. My friends called me Satan because I used to tell them that, "if I'm going to sin, I'm going to sin right, I'm not going to pretend I'm something I am not."

I was in and out of therapy for a total of six years, and on and off anti-depressants until I was 25. I had been hospitalized for depression for the 3rd time in a year and a half. Finally, after all that time, my mother asked me if it would help if my uncle apologized, and I told her I think so. So she told my grandmother she wanted my uncle to apologize to me. My grandmother, my precious Grozsmummy, then sent me a horrible, angry letter to tell me how upset she is that I want to bring all of this up again, after all these years.

My uncle sent me a letter that said something like, he is sorry this has to be brought up again after all these years, but he never ACTUALLY apologized for his crimes. However, for my own sanity, I accepted it. I had lived with that burden for all those years, and finally someone acknowledged that something wrong had been done to me. I wrote my uncle a letter and profoundly thanked him for his letter and for sharing this burden with me. I was hoping to rub it in his face a little more, by pretending that I really thought he had apologized sincerely. After that I quit going to therapy and I quit trying to numb my feelings with pharmaceutical products. I finally threw away my pills and started to live when I was twenty-five. Incidentally, that was also when I gave up on Christianity as my religion of choice. I knew that I still believed in God, but not the way Christianity explains Him. That's when I was ready to allow God to guide me.

I quit drinking, I started learning about Islam, and eight months later I knew that Allah wanted me to be a Muslima. I just had to argue with myself for a while before I would submit to covering my head to go out, and to pray. I hated the idea of covering again, because of the connotations the practice carried back home. It took me three days and three sleepless nights of wrestling with the issue of the scarf, because I did not believe I could call myself a Muslima if I did not cover my hair in front of strangers, and when I pray. Finally, on the third day, I told myself that I already wear a scarf to visit my Muslim friends, and the people at work are not really my friends, I just work with them, so I'll have pretty much the same relationship with them, that I already have. Then I was able declare my vow that I believe God is One, and Mohammed is His messenger. I have never doubted my choice, even though it has not always been easy. I could go into more detail about this transition, but it is hardly relevent to the purpose of this blog.

Sometimes the old rage still returns, but now I allow myself to feel it. On the rare occasions when it feels too large for my brain to hold, I take forty drops of alcohol-free licorice root in a glass of orange juice or something and it calms me down. I could probably get some kind of prescription, but those tend to numb one's emotions completely. That, to me, is worse than rage. It is rage with a cause. The rage of a violated little girl who was told to be quiet, to grow up, to get over it. A violated little girl who never got justice, but chose to live anyway.

Anyway, I did my own research in the bible, to see what it says about beating children, and to my horror, it was all there, in black and white:

Proverbs 13:23-25 (King James Version)
23Much food is in the tillage of the poor: but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment.
24He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
25The righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul: but the belly of the wicked shall want.

King James Version (KJV)

Proverbs 22:14-16
14The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein.
15Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
16He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.

Proverbs 23:12-14 (King James Version)
12Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
13Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
14Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

While Islam does not prohibit spanking entirely, if a parent leaves a red mark on a child under the age of puberty, the parent is guilty of oppression and must pay a monetary fine to the child. If the child is over puberty, and a parent leaves the smallest red mark on their persons, they have to ask their children's forgiveness. See how vast is the difference between Islam and Christianity? Parents in Islam do have rights on their children, however, chlidren also have rights on their parents. Violence towards your children is not acceptable solely on the basis of the fact that they are children, and are smaller than yourself, according to Islamic law. I'm sure we have plenty of Muslims who do not obey the law, but the Christians who beat and wound their children can say, "we are obeying God's law," because their bible told them to do it.

Thanks to God for guiding me to Himself. He set me free, it is He who helped me pick up the broken pieces and LIVE.

Blankets and Frozen Plants

When I was fourteen years old I decided I want to buy a horse of my own. So I saved money from baby-sitting, and selling eggs from my chickens until I had enough money for a horse. I was sixteen when I bought him. Then at nineteen years old I decided I want to open a greenhouse business, and sell plants. So I sold my horse to some young Amish dudes and used my money to buy seeds, pots and potting soil to start my business.

My father and my brothers built a small greenhouse for me, it was about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. I heated it in the winter time with a stove made of oil drums. I had to get up so often during the winter to feed the fire so I decided to sleep on a cot in the greenhouse. I took about three or four blankets with me and I took an alarm clock to wake myself up when it was time to feed some wood into the fire.
It worked for awhile, then one night in January the alarm clock did not go off and I didn't wake up until it was so cold my breath was steaming. I jumped up and rushed to the stove, but the fire was completely dead. I shined my flashlight and examined the plants...it was too late, half of my baby Geranium crop was frozen to death. I was so upset, because they were so small and so cute and I couldn't wait to watch them grow and bloom in time for spring sales. But that dream was shattered that frost-bitten night. I had to order more seeds and start all over with the geraniums, because the ones that did not die were stunted for good.
That day I thought about the dilemma of the night before. I thought about what I should do to make sure I wake up on time. So I decided to move my cot to the end of the greenhouse farthest from the stove. I folded all of my blankets except one, and took them back in the house. I had decided that if it gets cold enough to wake me up with my solitary blanket, it means it's time to tend the fire. That system never failed. The cold always woke me up before it was cold enough to freeze any of my little green babies.
When I left home I turned the business over to my family. Today it grosses around $100,000.00 a year, not counting the amount they spend for supplies.

Black Snakes and Purple Martins

...once upon a time, when I lived with my family on the old family farm in Southern Maryland, my father built a special bird house which was meant to attract Purple Martins. It worked. For many summers we listened to the cheerful melodies of the Martins. One summer the birds suddenly became very silent, or they had fled from their house. We missed their voices, because they were always chirping. I remember looking towards the Martin house and trying to figure out what happened. Presently I noticed a long, black, writhing snake maneuvering itself from one compartment to the next. It was busy cleaning house.

I screamed for my father, and he quickly lowered the bird house, which stood on top of a high, hinged pole. He removed the smelly reptilian perpetrator from the Martins' house. However, that year there were no baby purple Martins chirping excitedly when their mothers brought them pieces of worms and bugs to eat. In fact, the Martins never returned to their invaded house again. We did a little research and learned that the smell of the snake would linger inside their house forever, so they would never accept it again, even though we made a metal cone and attached it as a shield around the pole to prevent future marauding creatures from climbing the pole. Much to our disappointment we only had sparrows and starlings in our Purple Martin house after that.