Eternal hope.

I have a wonderful friend Samira,a beaming light like few others. She is joyful, energetic, deepened in her Faith, spiritual to the core and so fun to be with. I went to college with her and have known her since I was a teenager. She is the one who would accompany me to Chi Chi's to chat and eat chips when it was too tiring to study. We talked on endless nights about friendship, family, faith, guys, ideas of joy, of suffering...and we absolutely get each other, in an easy, no need to explain fashion. We also LOVED dancing to the Cure (Close to Me...)

Today I heard a story about her which brought me to tears because of the heartwrenching events that have unfolded in her life in the past week.

On a normal day, Samira, who is 8 months pregant, brought her 2 year old daughter home and unfastens her from the car seat to bring her daughter into her house. After she comes back outside she reaches to get her purse from inside the car, and the car starts to roll back while in park mode.

Samira was dragged down the hill with the car, and then was severely injured by the car as she had fallen and the car had ran her over. (!!!!, my mind cannot fully comprehend this last fact even now) With crushed ribs and collapsed lungs and many other internal injuries, she decided at that moment, laying on the street by her house, that if she didnt get up, that she would not survive. She some how got the superhuman strength to actually get to her neighbor's house and ring the bell.

After ringing the door bell of the neighbor, she asked them to keep an eye on her daughter...and to call 911. She was flown in a helicopter to the hospital.

Not only is she alive, but a miracle that she is and her new son is alive. Her baby was saved, despite a second by second life threatening operating procedure. The nurses, even with 23 years of experience called it a miracle baby and a miracle mom.

The little boy Ellis is now stronger and healthier than anyone could ever have anticipated, despite his first moments of life without any breath. Samira is in ICU, but is slowly getting a prognosis that seems to be a good one. The doctors, nurses, everyone, everywhere people are amazed, they are astonished at her miraculous survival and of her baby.

...Today after I heard the details of the accident, I couldnt help but to just cry, with both tears of joy that they are okay but also in a surreal sense of "Oh My God" my dearest friends are really suffering. First little Max, and now this incredulous event of Samira and her new baby boy. What do I do with this information? How do I compute this data into my life? These are people who are pushing beyond their means, they are absolutely courageous and treading on a path which tests their resolve, their life force and their ability to face life in the darkest hours. It makes me think of who we are, and the smallness of our lives.

A single moment can change our lives and shock us out of our limited sense of reality in a heartbeat.

I extend my deepest love, prayers and hope to my friends who are suffering beyond my worst nightmares as their events unfold before their eyes. But I still believe that they continue this fight because it is not yet over. Some how we are given these trials but I refuse to believe that we are alone. We are never left alone and even though the wisdom of the suffering may not be clear to us now, we have to trust, have faith, grab hold to our sense of reality and shift and move in the direction flexibily enough so we can somehow God willing, emerge wiser, stronger and maybe even victorious.

"O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their sustaining grace."

-Bahá'u'lláh