THE BLACK BOX……….

Every mothers Day for the past few years I look at the Black Box. It sits in the recesses of my mind, securely lidded and weighed down with the grief of the loss of my son, tied securely with the ribbons of the memories of my son.

Every mother’s day I want to peek in it, and usually resist.

One mother’s day I did open it a crack. When I was faced with the force of what met me head on, I realized I was not ready to receive what wanted to come out of it.

Past resentments, happenings that I felt I should have avoided, sadnesses that were inflicted on me and my loved ones, and the utter helplessness of my mother and me, against time, adversarial people, the neediness of love and the unreliability of therapies.

I have come a long way in my understanding of the human spirit, acknowledgment of the power and love of Allah upon our lives and death and how humans beings are guided or misguided depending on who they choose as their awliya……….And yet I remain unsure how I will face the onslaught of the contents of the Black Box.

Even though I feel I am now better equipped to open the Black Box and face the past, I am still not sure whether I have the resilience to weather and bounce back from the onslaught of the demons inside the box including but not limited to those of grief, anger, resentment and palpable helplessness of me and my mother in past circumstances.

So…….why don’t I let it be? Closed and sealed till the Day of Judgment? The urge to open it and face the ghosts of my past, the mirror of my previous self and the need to purge everything is what drives that desire.

I find myself weak, and again this mother’s day I look at the black box for a long time and decide to leave it be for another period of time.

Instead I think of when she was youthful, beautiful and a gifted story teller, and I an avid story buff…………and sit down to write from memory outside the Black Box.

Do you have a black box ? What have you done with its contents?