Advice to Mohammed Abdelhaq

To my precious son,

Here is a field of flowers that I give you with love.

There are many things I wish to teach you about being a good person and I wish I could give more guidance as you grow, but I am restricted at this time. Firstly, I can not stress how important that it is that you know I love you and your sister with all my heart. Inta eyeyooni wa inta elbee wa inta habeebee. Ana bahabbeck kateer.

My advice to you as you grow...well...I have all sorts of advice and I have more advice to give as I learn myself...the years it would take to give it all to you...well...life will teach you what I can not.

I guess I'll have to stick to the highlights. This is the advice that I would not only give to you, but for all humankind. It is most important to be open minded. My wish for you is that you always stay objective, always be kind, patient, courteous, empathetic, loving, generous, compassionate, understanding, caring, happy, and all sorts of other adjectives that are good for you haha.

I remember you were one to hold on to anger. You kept your feelings inside and there is nothing wrong with you being the way you are because everyone has their own way of dealing with things and obstacles to overcome. The key is to have a healthy way of dealing with it all.
Forgive....forgive those who have hurt you...real or imagined...intended or unintended. Your anger serves no purpose and the internal anger ends up hurting you probably a lot more than them. (this is something we ALL need to work on...even me).

Love....this is a huge one. It encompasses many others...including forgiveness, compassion, etc. It is the ultimate feeling. Love....Approach everything with love...and everyone with love. Since you tend to be more introverted, use it to your advantage and observe. Here's what I want you to do. Pick something you don't like...lets pick flies. Who really likes flies anyways!!! haha but seriously...they do serve a purpose. They are nature's garbage disposals. Without them the world would really be gross. So...in a way...you can see their beauty and love them. Now take something else...take a person...you can take most people and find something beautiful about them and love them for it....but let's just say you can't see it. Let's just say they are the most demonic evil person ever created...you can still love them...you want to know how? Look at them this way...without them, we would not know what love or good or kind is. Let me explain. If you lived in a world where everyone and everything was peaceful and happy...you would never know what happiness is...do you know why? Because you have never experienced the opposite of it. You can not really know and appreciate what anything is until you have had the opposite. So take that person and give thanks to them and send them love...for they teach lessons. No one is perfect in seeing this all the time. It is human nature to react or be upset or disgusted or angry. The secret is to be able to turn this thought on when you can.

I don't know what is in your heart towards me. I don't know what you've been told. I don't even know whether you hate me or love me...I love you unconditionally anyways. What do I ask of you...I do ask you to love me...love me for the imperfect human that I am. You don't have to like me...those are 2 different emotions. And if you say you can't love me because you don't know me...that's ok too and I understand...one day when you're an adult you can get to know me. I don't know where I'll be living, but it isn't too hard to find people if you look in the right places. Right now I'm in school to be a registered nurse and making good grades ...hope you are too :-) Good grades means a chance to get into school to learn what you want to learn and enjoying what you're learning. It is important to have a career you enjoy. If you're anything like the men on my side of the family, they all like working with engines, electronics, math, science, etc. I think your dad went for interior design...which means artistic/creative. Maybe be an engineer who designs things :-). Many times personality traits pass on generation to generation.

And yes....I know this message may never reach your eyes, but for me it brings me peace to write. I love writing and if your eyes don't see this...maybe it will reach your soul somehow...or your dreams :-)

So for now.....go with LIGHT and LOVE in your heart my sweet boy.....I think of you both always and you're always in my heart.