I don't know what has come over me. I have been reading in bed like I do every night before going to sleep, when a melody of an old Italian song, sung by a warm male voice, tiptoed to my ears. It feels as if the singer is serenading me, though he does not know my name. The words of the song have penetrated my heart. Overwhelming romantic feelings are going through my being like a gentle wave. I feel tender love for an unknown someone. I close my eyes, and all the feelings I knew in my life, in the arms of a special someone, came back. I dance with him in my mind and wish he will never let go. His chin is resting on my head with so much tenderness. It is so hard to feel lonesome in such a night where everything around me is velvet.

Let me go back to the man of my imagination. I think he will spend the night with me. :)

رحيل رجل ليس ككل الرجال، رحيل طارق الأيوب

لا زالت دمعة الفراق تسيل والقلب حزين على فراق رجلا ليس ككل الرجال. طارق الأيوب، اسم له ثقله. لا يمكن أن يمر رحيله دون ذكره والاحتفال بكل ما قدمه لنا خلال حياته، والتي تركت أثراً عميقاً في حياة الكثيرين. نعم نحن نتألم لفراقه، إلا أننا يجب أن نحتفي بالرجل الذي أعطى أهله وبلده وكل من عرفه دون حدود. يجب أن نعطيه حقه ونذكر مساهمته الكبيرة في تطور بلاده خاصة السوق المالية والاقتصادية، والتي كان هو فيها أحد معالم الاقتصاد الكويتي. كان المرحوم رجلا ذي ألواناً متعددة. فكان الاقتصادي القادر والرجل الفائق الذكاء والإبن الصالح والأخ المسامح والصديق الوفي والكبير المتواضع، وصاحب نكتة. وهذه ليست إلا بضع من صفاته. جمع طارق بين الكبرياء والتواضع، والذكاء والعفوية والجد والمرح، والصرامة والرقة، والكثير الكثير من الصفات التي بهرت الكثيرين وأثارت الغيرة عند الآخرين.

تعرفت على الرجل عام 1976 عندما عدتّ من الجامعة الأمريكية في القاهرة إلى الكويت التي قضيت طفولتي فيها، لأعمل لدى شركة العقارات المتحدة حيث كان طارق الأيوب حينئذ مسؤولا بسيطاً يدير أحد أقسام الشركة. كان شاباً في مقتبل العمر حينذاك، إلا أن جديته في العمل وذكائه الفائق ومعرفته جعلته يبدو أكبر سناً. ولم تذهب تلك الصفات دون أن يلاحظها المسؤولين الكبار في الشركة، فعجلوا بترقيته وتسليمه مناصباً كبيرة تتيح له اتخاذ القرارات الهامة. ولم تمضي إلا سنوات قليلة ليصبح طارق الأيوب عضوا في مجالس إدارة شركات وبنوك عديدة، بل أصبح رئيسا لمجالس إدارة عديدة. ورغم إدراكي لذكائه الخارق، إلا أنه ظل يفاجئني بأفكار ومعرفة ظلت ترفع من شأنه وتضعه في مرتبة أعلى وأعلى. كان طارق من معالم الكويت الهامة، ومن أحد العناصر الاقتصادية الفاعلة في البورصة، كما وصفه وزير التجارة والصناعة، أحمد الهارون حينما قال في نعيه: "إن لجنة السوق تلقت نبأ وفاة عضو اللجنة الأيوب، وهو احد العناصر الاقتصادية الفاعلة فيها، وذلك ما اظهره دعمه للقرارات التي اتخذت على مدار الفترة السابقة من منطلق تمثيله للوسطاء."

ولكن لم يكن ذلك ما سحرني فيه وجعلني احترمه، انما التواضع الذي كان يتحلى به هو الذي سحرني وسحر غيري في هذا الرجل. إذ لم يسمح لنَسَبِه إلى عائلة مرموقة أو لكونه كويتي أو رئيسا أو مديرا بأن تغيره أو تحوله إلى رجل متغطرس كما كانت الحال مع الكثيرين في ذلك الوقت. بل على العكس. كان طارق يشعر مع أصغر موظفيه ويتعاطف من أي من كان، بغض النظر عن جنسيته أو دينه أو لونه. كان طارق رجلا نادرا، بل لم يكن له مثيلآ.

ولعلني لا أنصفه إذا لم أتحدث عن خفة دمه وعن روحه المرحة ونكاته التي كانت تجعل كل من حوله يهتز ضحكا؛ أو إذا نسيت أن أحدثكم عن خفة يده التي كانت تؤنس الكثيرين عندما كان يقوم ببعض الألعاب السحرية الخفيفة. وأهم من كل ذلك، كان طارق رجلا عفوياً طيباً حنوناً.

هل حدثتكم عن الرجل المتدين الذي بذل حياته في الصلاة والعبادة وعمل الخير؟ يا الله، ما أروع ذلك الرجل؟ كم أحببته وقدرته لأنه كان عظيماً قادراً على محبة واحترام الناس الذين يدينون بغير دينه. فلم يسمح للتعصب بأن يتسلط على عقله، بل كان يبدي احترامه لي ولعائلتي المسيحية. كان أول من يهنئنا بحلول عيد الميلاد المجيد. إن مواقفه تلك زادت من احترامي له وللدين الإسلامي، لأنه كان خير ممثلاً لدينه. ورغم أنني لم أره من 14 عاماً قبل وفاته إلا أنني متأكدة بأنه حتى مماته لم يتفق أبداً مع الفتاوي الحاقدة التي تدعو إلى مقاطعة المسيحيين والامتناع عن تهنتئتهم بأعيادهم، مثل تلك الفتوى اللعينة التي أصدرها يوسف القرضاوي. كان طارق رجلا ذو صدر رحب وقلب كبير. عرف ربه جيداً وأدرك ما يجهله الكثيرون ألا وهو أن الله عادلاً يحب جميع مخلوقاته دون أن يفرق بينهم، وبغض النظر عن لونهم أو دينهم.

كم كان بودي أن أنصف الرجل واعطيه حقه، ولكن كتب وكتب لن تكفي وآلاف الكلمات لن تعطيه حقه. ومع ذلك قررت أن أكتب هذا النعي المتواضع لكي أشكر ذلك الرجل على صداقته. فكم شجعني على الكتابة؟ ولولا تشجيعه لي لما نشرت الكتابين اللذين يباعا حالياً على الانترنت وفي الأسواق الأمريكية. ولولاه لما كتبت أجمل القصائد والرسائل باللغتين العربية والانكليزية.

أنعي طارق وكلي حزن على فراقه. أبعث له كلمة شكر عبر المحيطات وعبر الحواجز التي تقف بين أهل الأرض وأهل الجنة. أبعثها من قلب العاصمة الأمريكية واشنطن. فالرجل الذي ظل في قلوب هاجرت إلى الغرب منذ عشرين عاماً لا بد وأن يكون إنساناً رائعاً متميزاً. رحمك الله يا طارق الأيوب، وأسكنك فسيح جنانه. ودعوتي الأخيرة هي أن يصبرنا الله ويصبر أهلك وأحبائك على فراقك.

ميراندا الحريزي

PRESS RELEASE ISSUED ON July 7, 2009

“Daddy Please Don’t Cry” a Children “Angel Tale” on Hope after Death to be in Bookstores this Christmas

Miranda Conyers, an unknown American writer who aspires to one day become a full time author, is getting ready to publish her first storybook entitled, “Daddy, Please Don’t Cry,” targeting children 7-12 years of age, in which she turns her own experience of losing a loved one into a book of hope and faith. Ms. Conyers intends to publish her book and make it available for young readers before Christmas 2009.

When asked about the type of book this is, she said that as a young girl she was very fascinated with fairy tales and had hoped that one day she will write her own. But her busy life prevented her from doing so, until that unfortunate spring day in 2006, when she lost her only niece Rawand in a car accident. The loss of Rawand, who was very close to her heart, devastated her. The hurt in her heart was too deep to live with. She desperately needed a source of comfort, and there it was, in the spirit of faith that dwelled within her soul. Seeing how her strong faith was able to reduce her pain and lead her to seeing beyond the physical death, she decided to share it with the world so that they too may find the peace she had begun to experience. It was then that she decided to turn her love for writing into something that will bring hope not only to her brother and his family and to others but also to her own tender heart. She had to do something about the indescribable pain associated with losing her 23-year old niece, who was one month shy from her graduation from George Mason University in Northern Virginia. Hence, the idea of writing this book about hope after death came to life. Though the book was completed in 2007, it took Ms. Conyers two years to find Richa Kinra- a children book illustrator from India - who showed great personal interest in the book and offered to be part of the project. Her gracious response to the author’s invitation, in which she said, “
Your story was really touching. And I would consider myself really honored to have read about Rawand, and God's promise... I will be glad to do the illustrations for your book” encouraged Ms. Conyers to immediately team up with her and start on the project.

As a Christian, Ms. Conyers prefers to refer to her children stories as angel tales instead of fairy tales, not only because she believes in angels and intends to use them in her future writings, but because she always thought of her niece as an angel, and feels it fitting to refer to her book accordingly. After introducing her niece in this book, Ms. Conyers intends to make her the main character of a series of children stories, in which her niece is an angel in heaven who comes into the lives of young children to teach them values and help them in distress.

Ms. Conyers is very excited about the book and plans to make the book available for young readers as early as September this year. The book will be distributed via Lulu.com and other book selling websites such as Amazon.com.

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O, ye of little faith!

And He [Jesus] answered them and said: "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you?." Mark 9:19

There is nothing I regret in my life as much as I regret wasting my life professing Christianity yet knowing very little about it. I regret that I had insufficient knowledge of our Holy Book, and based my beliefs on faith alone, which is why I often failed to respond clearly and convincingly to the objections thrown at me from every direction. I regret that I did not read to my children passages from the bible every night, when I had the chance to, like a good Christian would. I did not realize the importance of knowledge until this book, which is challenging the very core of Christianity, was written few years ago. I am referring to the Da Vinci Code. As dangerous as this book is going to be on those with little faith, I personally believe that, in the long run, it is going to be a blessing in disguise, because it came as a wakeup call to true Christians, and opened their eyes to the need to revisit the values and beliefs adopted by today’s anti-Christ culture, and respond to them, not only by faith but with clear historical evidence. I, for one, have decided to learn more about the Holy Book and Jesus Christ, from both historical and biblical points of view. I decided not to let people like Dan Brown or even the National Geographic tell me “The Truth” as they see it. I wanted to go back and research every claim myself, and learn the Truth that was given to us by God two thousand years ago.

I didn’t know where to begin, but fortunately, I was not the only one to sense the danger this book/ movie poses on our faith, because many seem to have taken it seriously as well, and have written volumes on the subject. This made my job much easier. Because I don’t suppose many will take the time or the trouble to go and research all these false claims- especially that Dan Brown, and other skeptics bluntly claim that they are presenting The Truth, I did the research for you. I was very glad to learn about the origin of the Gnostic gospels and to become aware of the deceptive nature of the media and other non-Christian writers who have been doing everything in their power to accuse the church of concealing “the Truth”. Now, studying their historic origin I know better, and I hope you will read about them too to learn the truth. The knowledge contained on the site/sites I am providing will be very enlightening, and I hope that you all will take the time to read them or listen to them. These men who have written or spoken here to expose the false claims in the Da Vinci Code, and the Gnostic gospels before it, are very knowledgeable people. You will learn a lot if you take the time to read what they had to say, or listen to their lectures [I am giving a link to them below]

When the Da Vinci Code came out, I was shocked to see many Christians, especially the younger generation, fall for every word Dan Brown, the author of the Da Vinci Code, said. To them, anything that discredited Christ became Gospel truth. It did not take long for them to even go as far as discard their lifelong beliefs, and begin to think that they were finally enlightened by the truth. They would even argue in favor of the Gnostic gospels that discredit the canonized Holy Bible which we believe in. Why did that happen? In my opinion, this happened because our children are genuinely searching for the truth, but are blinded to it because they are bombarded on daily basis with material that has nothing to do with God or His will. They are told that they need to examine things and question them, which is great. But, when they search they always look with suspicious eye to anything that comes from the church. What is even worse, they don’t go to the source- the bible and theology- but to the media and other non-religious and hostile sources. Granted that many churches and ministries have played a role in causing this distrust in the hearts of the people, but what I don’t understand is why these people cannot separate the two – Jesus and those who did this disservice to Him.

I urge you, my dear family and friends to take the time to re-examine the Bible and the life of Christ as shown and proven by historic evidence, as compared to those Gnostic gospels which many talk about as if THEY ARE the gospel truth, yet have very little to do with true events, and more importantly eye witnessing.

Links recommended:

http://www.pcgmedia.org/davincianswers.html (Josh McDowell’s audio)
http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/da_vinci_2.htm - St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church.
http://www.debunkingdavinci.com/

The higher I soar, the harder the fall.

It took me 50 years plus on this earth before I began to realize the actual application of the law of gravity which ends up to mean that the higher one soars the harder the fall.

When I try to justify why I have failed so far to observe this simple theory in my relationships with the outside world, I tell myself that may be it was because I always kept my eyes focused on the highest point of each of these relationships, instead of checking, every now and then, the distance between me and the ground to which I might crash down should the ground shake under my feet, or should I unexpectedly get pushed down by the ones I love. Call it faith, call it trust, call it foolishness, call it whatever you will, but at the end it can only be summed in two words "blind faith."

At the top of that hill which I climbed, I moved confidently towards the people whom I love dearly and who I knew that they loved me back. I overlooked the danger involved and went for it. I was confident that should the ground shake under my feet, or should I lose my balance, they will surely give me a hand and rescue me. With the trusting nature that I have, it didn’t occur to me that may be, I say may be, the same people that I am looking up to for help, might be the ones who will let go and push me down the cliff.

But can I really blame them? I was the one who let down my guards and to trust that they will be there for me. I was the one to believe that their love was stronger and greater than gravity. I allowed my feelings to grow and my spirit to soar to the peak of the cliff, forgetting that the higher I went with my love and expectations, the harder the fall will be if and should I fall off.

A lesson to be learned by all, but will I benefit from it? I doubt it. Because, I plan and intend to live by that blind faith. I would rather deal with disappointments, than be a woman of little or no trust in the human race.

"It is Well With My Soul"

My sweet angel Rawand,

Tomorrow we are holding a memorial service for you at Saint Timothy’s. I can’t believe it has been almost 40 days since you had left us. Though your parents are going through the motion, they still listen and hope, like I do, for your footsteps on the stairs. I know that I do, every time I visit your house.

Since I woke up this morning, all my strength has turned into weakness, and all my acceptance into denial. My cheeks are sticky and my eyes are red from crying over you my sweet niece. The pain is so much, yet it increases when I think of my brother- your dad, your mom and Gabi. I feel so scared when I hurt so much, because it only tells me how much more your parents and brother are hurting.

Looking desperately for consolation, I remembered a song I had heard in the church few weeks ago, called “It is well with my soul,” which was written by Horatio Gates Spafford, a long time Christian, during a cross-Atlantic voyage in 1873, shortly after he had lost all his four daughters in a ship accident. He wrote the poem as he was passing through the spot where his daughters were said to have drowned. Instead of breaking down and losing faith he wrote one of the most inspiring songs, he wrote the following words:

[Background music is the tune for these lyrics]

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Faith is a wonderful thing that helps us through bad times, yet our faith is tested every day. I pray that soon we, who loved you so dearly, will be able to celebrate your life with us, instead of mourn your loss, and sing: It is well, it is well with my soul.

Your loving aunt
Miranda
6 May, 2006

Rawand is an angel now

Our Rawand is an angel now, this much I know is true
She will be watching over us, and also all of you
We will never forget her smile; we will never forget her face
She touched the hearts of many, more than we will ever know
Her life with us was short but sweet, and she loved everyone so
Her beautiful presence, yes, we lost. Our child is now gone
But we know that she will help us figure out how we can move on
Her memories live on forever, in all that she has done
Her face will have saved others, in this way we have won
The sadness and hurt will never leave the pain we feel is deep
We are still not sure if we are awake, or if we are asleep
Rawand, our little angel, oh how we love you so
Our tears are so intense; we miss you more than you know
Thank you for all the love and joy that you have given us
You've taught us all what it means to make our lives worth living
We will never understand why you have been taken
If we fail to enrich our lives, we will be mistaken
Mommy, Daddy, and Gabi will try their very best
To make it through the rough days ahead, and figure out the rest
We know you are in heaven now, and that you can dance and sing
The songs you loved, for Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, and Armstrong as well
But please stay a part of our lives, like an angel on our wings

We love you Rawand