I’ve decided to start this year, not writing a list of resolutions, but thinking of the one word that would guide me in how I want to live and experience this new year. HOPE!
Whether in casual encounters or gatherings of family and friends, I know that I feel most hopeful when I can connect on a kinder, more loving, and personal level.
We can all remember a time when it was difficult to engage in person. In its earlier appearance, Covid made us feel more isolated, hidden behind masks of protection, avoiding contact and conversation.
What is now hard to accept and can leave us feeling less hopeful, is what we witness so often on the news – the violence and killing by people who don’t even know each other. Recently, I was deeply touched by an amazing story, written by Greg Kelly/CBC, about an Iraqi and an Iranian, who during a war that neither had wanted to be in, changed what could have been the death of either or both of them. If you want to feel hopeful that we can change our fate by changing our views of each other and finding our common humanity, please take to heart their incredible story:
During the Iranian-Iraqi war, Najah a reluctant Iraqi soldier shared: “I didn’t know much about Iran. I knew it was a neighboring country. And that they were people next door to us. We enjoyed their music. They enjoyed ours. They were just like us.”
Zahed, a 13-year-old runaway from an abusive home in Iran, was conscripted in the service. He also had no animosity to those from a neighboring nation, but was later assigned as a medic to take care of wounded Iranian soldiers in a bunker. He heard moaning and discovered Najah, who was bleeding profusely from wounds that could soon lead to his death. Both wary of each other, Zahed leaned over and noticed a photo of a beautiful woman and a baby in Najah’s pocket. It was then that he decided to save this man’s life, despite his friends’ warnings that he could be killed himself for his actions. But Zahed took it a step further and got Najah by ambulance to a hospital, and convinced the doctor to work on him even though Najah was the ‘enemy’. It saved Najah’s life, even though he would become a prisoner of war for 17 years and never be able to find his loved ones again. Slow forward 20 years . . .Najah eventually would move to Vancouver to be near family.
Zahed hadn’t fared well, also serving time in prison after the war and losing his fiancé. He was angry and joined a merchant marine ship heading to Vancouver, on which he got in many fights, and rather than risk being returned to Tehran, he jumped overboard. Depressed and living on the street, with no hope for a future, he tried to hang himself. But friends intervened and encouraged him to get help. It was there, while in a waiting room at a health facility, that a man walked in the door. There was something familiar. They began asking each other questions about where they were from. They then both realized that Najah was in fact the man that Zahed had saved. They hugged and cried and they have become close friends ever since. This time it was Zahed’s life that was saved. He said: “Najah is like my family … he really is my angel, because he gave me life. After he got a new chance at life, he gave me a new chance at life. He is the dearest and most precious thing in the entire world to me.”
This story inspires me and gives me hope. And likewise, the words of Francesco Tarantino’s song, “WE Are One”: “They say the world will never change, that the fault lies in our stars, I can’t believe that it’s true, I know the change lies in the hearts of me and you.”
How can we open our hearts and minds, and be loving and forgiving, while we look for what brings us together rather than what separates us? What if we could be present as though it were our last opportunity to share and appreciate each other?
My hope for the world is that we may realize how interconnected we all are, sharing this planet, this universe for a limited time. May we choose to make it the best experience that we can while we are here – sharing our resources, our wisdom and understanding of what it means to be a conscious, loving human being and willing to do our best to leave this earth a better place.
And I am ‘hoping big’ that the children in our world will be willing and able to love and care for each other and the planet in ways that we have only dreamed of.
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