The Hidden Revelation: “My Passion Is Spirituality; My Mission Is to End Homelessness and Hunger.”

By Morson Livingston

This book, The Hidden Revelation, started out because of my search for knowledge and my in-depth studies of various religions. I realized that we are more alike than we are different through that search. I realized that the major religions of the world have more similarities than differences, yet we think we are so different from each other.

Various parts of the world, practices various religions and spiritual teachings and at the core, the very message, some traditions and some practices are one and the same. Then why do we fight in the name of religion? Why do we kill in the name of religion? Why do we look down at some, look up at some and don't look at some at all? Why do we discriminate and think we are better?

The basis for this book, though not all encompassing, seeks to highlight, how the undertone of religions in the world are the same. How at the core, we are all seeking the same things in life- which is peace, love, harmony, contentment, happiness and a connection to a power bigger than and greater than anyone of us. This book shows how no matter what religion we belong too, yes, there are differences but the similarities far outweighs them. So the question arises again, Why do we fight, why do we hate?

If we are all so alike, we should be living in harmony, we should be at peace, we should be happy...the beauty is we can all have that. We just need to put our minor differences aside and connect at a heart level, at a spiritual level and see God in each other.

Read the book and you would journey into a world where it is somewhat of a Utopia, but we need that in order to see the big picture and to understand love in the Universe.

The settings used to describe various religions and practices, also takes you, on a travel and you get to picture parts of the world you may have on your bucket list. Even some world class travelers, who have visited some of these places, might also be able to see it from another perspective.

If anything at all, you would find at least one nugget to help improve your life and your perspective. Spread love and unity!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503584082

Morson Livingston

I was born into a large family of eight in India and I am the middle child. Maybe my middle child syndrome made me join or volunteer for every organization I could have, which was available in my surroundings, e.g., I was a Boy Scout Leader, NCC (which is similar to ROTC), an Altar boy at the Catholic Church, and later on I volunteered to be the Librarian at the children’s library. I also competed in many debates and elocution competitions where I eventually became known as a champion debater and elocutionist, winning many prizes. This aspect of my life really helped to mold me to be able to speak in any open forum, small or large, and to make my leadership skills shine through. These many experiences, along with the encouragement from my parents, teachers, and elders, etc., really enabled me to later on do the things I was able to as a Catholic Priest, Lecturer at Universities, and Chaplain for the US Army, Hospitals, as well as the Veterans Administration and the Federal Bureau of Prison Systems. My job at the Federal Bureau of Prison Systems helped me to put many things in perspective. I witnessed mafia kings, politicians, etc., who had vast wealth and power, e.g., expensive boats, homes, cars, etc., in the real world fight for a matchstick in prison.

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Copyright © 2015 by Morson Livingston.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015910940

ISBN:      Hardcover   978-1-5035-8409-9

                Softcover      978-1-5035-8410-5

                eBook            978-1-5035-8408-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 07/09/2015

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Contents

Revelation

Disclaimer

The Author’s Story

The Queen Of Babylon

New Beginnings For Francis

The Story Of Abraham Joshua Hirsch

The Story Of Ali Mohammad Al-Misri

The Story Of Giuseppe

Story Of Mark

The Story Of Chodak Yeshe Tsarong

The Story Of Bingargy Brumby, Alias Freddy

The Story Of Ravikumar

Conclusion

Judaism

Islam

Christianity

Atheism

Buddhism

Dreaming

Hinduism

Religion

Spirituality

Religion Versus Spirituality

Spiritual Person

Let It Be Revealed…

Bibliography

This book is dedicated to:

My Mom, who taught me hard work and survival skills and

My Father, who taught me resilience in life as well as

For all those who contributed their life lessons to make me the person that I am today.

My passion is Spirituality and my mission is to end hunger and homelessness!

Revelation

One day, his friends and elder brother Balarama, told baby Krishna’s foster mother, Yashoda that Krishna had been eating unwashed fruits that had fallen to the ground with dirt on it. Disgusted and angry with the child, she pulls him aside and demands to know the truth. Nonchalantly, Krishna replied, Mother, why would I want to eat dirt when there is so much butter and milk around? These kids just want to get me in trouble with you. Before you lift your hand to punish me, why don’t you look in my mouth to check if their statements are true? So saying, the child opened his mouth wide open, so Yashoda could look inside. And Lo! What does she see there?

She sees the entire universe inside Krishna’s mouth; the planets, swirling around the sun; the galaxy, the stars, the Milky Way, indeed the whole of cosmos and she almost faints with fright. She is bewildered and confused by the grand vision that her toddler, so innocently reveals to her. However, the next moment Krishna is back to being an ordinary child again and gradually, Yashoda too recovers from her experience.

—Taken from the Mahabharata,

the ancient scripture of the Hindus in India

O NCE I HAD a dream, that I was in a deep dark open coal mine pit and I wanted to escape. I struggled to get out; I used my bare hands to climb and eventually was able to escape from the pit. When I looked down, I noticed my favorite jeep and motorcycle also in the pit and there was an escape passage, but I did not see it at first. This made me realize that the tools to make my life easier and more enjoyable were right within my reach; I just had to be able to see it. I needed to be able to step back and see that everything was right before my very eyes. All the tools and solutions to life’s challenges are always before us. We just have to be open to see and to accept them. Return of the prodigal son!

Disclaimer

T HIS BOOK IS Utopia; it is a worldview. It is a vision we should aspire for and it is a place where everyone can live in peace, harmony, unity, and happiness. It promotes individuals, societies, countries, and the world to go beyond our pettiness. It is a momentary realization of the liberated world we wish to live in. It’s an allegory devised to drive home the point of our Creation—so many questions and so many perspectives.

Who am I?

Why am I?

Why am I here on planet earth?

What is my purpose in life?

What is the meaning of my existence?

Is there a God?

How do I communicate with God?

Is Religion different from Spirituality?

Why are there haves and have nots?

Why do the innocent suffer?

Why is there so much pain and misery in our midst?

Why isn’t there complete mercy in this world?

Why isn’t there total justice in this world?

Why does evil coexist with good?

Where can we find total refuge? Is it in Religion or Spirituality?

How am I to connect with other people?

All through my life I’ve long been tormented by these existential dilemmas. I traveled far and wide in search of answers, read various scriptures of every known and lesser-known faiths, and have come to my own premise about our purpose on this planet that I’d like to share with my readers through this book. The narrative, the use of elaborate rhetorical strategies, the analogies and symbolism, liberally borrowed from faiths across geographical boundaries, are a poetic license, my attempt at making this book accessible to a wide array of readers regardless of age, faith, place of origin, beliefs, or cultural values. This book attempts to transcend all that and more while eventually trying to unite us all, making everything fall in place like a jigsaw puzzle.

I’ve deliberately kept the narrative simple and straightforward using characters and geographical places to portray the messages, as well as add a touch of the mythical, because the questions that this book attempts to answer lie on the realm of the unfathomable. For those who have been privileged to journey to these places, it would be a time to relive those memories and experiences. To those who have not gone to these places, we would be embarking on a journey together. According to Mark Twain, Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness. In fact, they go way beyond simple life-and-death issues. Again, the religious overtones in this book are deliberate as I wanted this work to come across as free spirited, non–straight jacketed, and a bit rational and questioning at various places where there is a clear conflict between reason and faith. My intent is for us all to pause to ponder and just to be.

This journey happens to everyone in different forms, places, times, and settings or even beyond it—in someone’s fertile imagination. There are many commonalities but to share my research and my knowledge, I chose various parts of the world as the backdrop and deliberately did not put any dates because the message is eternal and timeless. There could be names and ideas that sound familiar because these have been borrowed liberally from ancient scriptures and numerous texts, places, and people of nearly every organized (orthodox) or unorganized faith¹ known to man. But the use of those characters and their treatment in the narrative is creative and mine alone.

As you turn these pages, you may find many of these concepts and thoughts to be familiar and similar to your everyday life and the world around us, even get a sense of déjà vu. Yet I’ve taken poetic license to translate and share ancient wisdom and scriptures for our times, trusting you to draw what you like from the tale since it’s not the elements of the story that are important here but the essence.

Undoubtedly, the idea, before it matured into this book, gave me several sleepless nights. Until now, I was a desperate, restless soul, not unlike the protagonist, John of Patmos (author of the Book of Revelations in the Bible), in search of answers to some eternal mysteries of life and death. Caught on the cleft stick, the demons and dilemmas preying on my mind relentlessly pitted God against man, Religion against science, dogma against belief, physical against metaphysical, greed against renunciation, myth against evidence, and faith against doubt.

The idea of the book is to show that we are reality and we are reality makers! Let us make a pleasant reality! We can alter the perception of reality, which is palatable to live with…

The Author’s Story

T HIS BOOK STARTED out because of my own restlessness as a seeker and a person who has many questions. I have always been a seeker of knowledge, to understand the bigger and greater things in life and about life. I was always seeking my own path in life by carving out how I can experience and learn all that I can.

I was born into a large family of eight in India and I am the middle child. Maybe my middle child syndrome made me join or volunteer for every organization I could have, which was available in my surroundings, e.g., I was a Boy Scout Leader, NCC (which is similar to ROTC), an Altar boy at the Catholic Church, and later on I volunteered to be the Librarian at the children’s library. I also competed in many debates and elocution competitions where I eventually became known as a champion debater and elocutionist, winning many prizes. This aspect of my life really helped to mold me to be able to speak in any open forum, small or large, and to make my leadership skills shine through. These many experiences, along with the encouragement from my parents, teachers, and elders, etc., really enabled me to later on do the things I was able to as a Catholic Priest, Lecturer at Universities, and Chaplain for the US Army, Hospitals, as well as the Veterans Administration and the Federal Bureau of Prison Systems. My job at the Federal Bureau of Prison Systems helped me to put many things in perspective. I witnessed mafia kings, politicians, etc., who had vast wealth and power, e.g., expensive boats, homes, cars, etc., in the real world fight for a matchstick in prison.

The part of India I was born in has exposed me to so many religions, cultures, and people. As a child, I came to the realization that each person in this world is different and yet we are all the same. Take my own family for example; we all have the same parents, we live in the same house, we eat the same foods, we go to the same schools, we belong to the same surroundings, we come from the same gene pool, yet no two siblings are alike. In fact, when I look at identical twins, even they are not 100 percent alike. But we are all human beings and that is what makes us all alike. Many times as a young boy, I would often climb on the highest treetop I can find and spend time alone looking at the world and reflecting. Most times I would see my surroundings and events that are taking place while observing I was enjoying the calm and peaceful environment, with almost a gleeful joy of a curious child to see the World and its beauty from a treetop. As I grew older, I would reflect back on those times and it made me realize that we could all be together in harmony. We are all one and the same, no matter what walks of life we come from, our status, or our Religion. This reality and other ones I have had to deal with made me an active participant in life, looking on, while simultaneously acting in my own life’s movies as each chapter continues to unfold.

My Advanced level of education permitted me to study about the fundamental truths about Universal principles (Philosophy), God (Religion/Theology), how society functions (Sociology), and why we behave the way we behave—individual behavior (Psychology). My training in clinical counseling has enabled me to comfort and counsel many. My clinical pastoral education has proven to be an invaluable when working with people of all ages especially those coping with life-changing situations, particularly in the healthcare field. Then, because of my work and my adventurous spirit, I was able to experience life in extreme contrast, including becoming a certified master yoga teacher with a diploma and thesis in Yoga and Kriyas as well as being a licensed massage therapist. I was blessed to get the opportunity to travel and see parts of the world and interact with people I would only dream about, see pictures of, or read about in books. I have been fortunate to travel to numerous countries in my life. I lived in large palatial structures at times and other times I lived in the poorest, most remote villages. I have slept on some of the most comfortable and luxurious beds and I have slept on bare ground under a small tent. There were times I had the best to eat and at times I went hungry especially when I had desert sand blown into my only hot meal for the day. Being the reflective person I am, I pondered on the contrasts in my life and I was grateful for the opportunities I have had.

My professional journey has allowed me to see both life and death and showed the importance of being religious and spiritual to be resilient. Engraved in my memory is the trauma of dealing with the death of my own assistant and close friend, who was a jump master, a Sergeant, and a highly decorated veteran who was full of life, vitality, and hope. We had lunch hours before and then I got the news that he had died in an accident. Additionally, I had the honor of holding the hands of many people as they bade farewell to the world. I equally had the joy of conducting numerous baby baptisms. Each experience allowed me to grow, to question, and to attempt to quench my thirst for knowledge and a higher power while opening up my appetite for more.

I have lived in the United States for some time and my life continues to evolve every day. There are times when I questioned many religious beliefs and have fervently searched for the one common factor which can connect us as children of the same God; moreover, as members of the same species.

There have been moments in my life, both good and bad, which really tested my faith, belief, and strength in God. When I was a young priest, I thought I was invincible and I could do anything; I wanted to affect the world in a positive manner, and I never rested. Based on remarks of people who know me very well within my system, some would say I am sensitive, some would say compassionate, some might even say I am highly adventurous with lots of leadership qualities, some would say I am a true visionary. It all depends on whom you ask.

Years later, my US Military experience as a Captain allowed me to see the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I was privileged and honored to have served as a Chaplain for the Blackhawk unit, with their Apaches (attack helicopters), Chinook helicopters, and Rangers; this was also very rewarding and a humbling experience to me. My advanced training on Suicide prevention in the US Army made me aware of how one’s own mind can trick itself, regardless of age, gender, or rank; there is no discrimination. I met some remarkable men and women; I had the privilege to interact with some of the finest warrior minds. I was part of a military mindset; equally I had the honor of interacting with various religious leaders. Conversely, my military life afflicted me physically because of my injury. I began having debilitating back and neck pains and I could not move at times. My pain took my brain. I had to make serious changes to the way I lived. All my hopes, my aspirations, and my dreams, everything, came crashing down. I went through really dark times and even felt divine darkness. Many of the good time seekers and so-called good-time friends went missing in action. A few times I felt the end was near.

I went through a period of denial, anger, grief, questioning, doubting, asking, soul searching: why do bad things happen to good people? My pain took my brains. I have made some mistakes but I have learned and grown from them, I have learned how to find the good out of bad. Even at times I might have offended people but it was done unintentionally. After the support of a few loved ones, medical treatment, reading, meditation, and a process of reinventing myself, I attempted to get out of the dark place I was in. I came to the realization that what would define me is not how I would fall or how many times I have fallen, but how I would rise and the number of times I would get up to shine again. This inspired me to blossom from being highly religious to joining the path of Spirituality, which was innate in me. Spirituality has kept me grounded all these years and it has been able to help me always rise to see the light again and as a way to continuously stay positive.

My path to Spirituality must have always been there in me; I just had not uncovered it yet. As a young novice, I vividly recall one of my anniversary retreats in May 1979, when we had the choice to take a bus to journey over the hill or to hike on foot from Kulamavu, Kerala, to Kurisumala Pilgrim Center. In those days, we did not have cellphones; even worse, we did not have GPS like we do now and that part of India was not as developed as it is today. I wanted to hike, so I suggested it and my adventurous group of friends agreed; today, those who are still alive are highly successful priests in various parts of the world. One group of brothers went on the bus and the rest of us decided to hike.

Along the way, we had no maps, just a sense of direction of where we needed to go to get over the hills to the Center. We just had our backpacks and made tree branches with our sticks to clear the path, and we started our hike. It was exhilarating at first, since we felt like we had freedom; we were one with nature and had the ability to explore. Soon, though, that exhilaration became exhaustion; we all grew tired and found the hike more challenging than we anticipated. We got tired, with scratches and bruises, and we were all dirty from the hike; with morale getting low, we just wanted to get to the Center. Since it was my idea, my friend, Maria Louise, who is no longer with us, but was then the group leader, asked me, Morson, what do you have to say about this idea? Being the witty twenty-year-old firebrand that I was, I pondered for a second, then blurted out, "Suffering for pleasure, man! Suffering for pleasure! My entire group just burst out in one huge loud laughter, which gave us a resurgence of energy, direction, and spunk again. We kept repeating suffering for pleasure on the journey, until we eventually found the Center. This concept has stayed with me all my life and it has helped me to always strive to overcome challenges as well. What was just a blurted-out ramble began to have deeper meaning for me and my friends, when we reflect about life, successes, failures, and frustrations, and when we put it in perspective, we realize that we all suffer seeking pleasure in existence. As the great Mahatma Gandhi said, Every successful person has a painful story and every painful story has a successful ending, so accept the pain and get ready for success…" This is so true for Religion and Spirituality.

My personal journey to and in Spirituality is ongoing and I know it would never stop. I decided to pen this book because of my own desire to answer some of the many questions I had and I am sure you have questions too…

The name of this book could be a misnomer. The book doesn’t reveal all the answers, but it opens up enough vaults of consciousness to quench someone’s thirst in the vast expanse of a godforsaken desert, where we all sometimes find ourselves in the darkened hour of the soul’s divine darkness. The goal of these pages is to show the commonality we all have as humans, no matter what walk of life we come from.

I’ve found myself on that no man’s land so often. A mere speck in the infinite universe of many stars and many galaxies—I read in a NASA report that scientists recently stumbled on another planet, now named MACS0647-JD, which is estimated to be about 13.3 billion light-years away from earth and is just a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way. This compels me to wonder, How small can small be?

I also think about it this way: We have an estimated 7,000 languages, and each of these languages encompasses a worldview, encompasses the ideas and predispositions and cognitive tools developed by thousands of years of people in various cultures. Each one of those languages offers a whole encapsulated universe.

So we have 7,000 parallel universes, some of them quite similar to one another and others are a lot different.² We all live in our own worlds and sometimes we create our own universes without thinking there is another. How many times have we become so involved in our own lives and what is going on with us that we have no time for anyone else or what is happening with people in our own circles? For sure, we live in our own world and, by extension, universe. When we live in our own universe, we are often unaware or unable to see beyond that world for whatever reason. But the reality is there is a larger world and a larger universe around us; all we have to do is look, see, and be open to the experience. As Malcom X said in his autobiography, One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.³ What I am sharing is that I have learned that we are all different; while similar, we all have life experiences and it sometimes consumes us that we become totally focused on our own world but it is only when we step out of that world and see there is more, that there is a world besides ours, can we empathize and see another person’s viewpoint.

However, this book is not about the big, complex galaxies outside us. Rather, it talks about those that are housed within each one of us. This reminds me of a parable I read of about baby Krishna during my travels throughout India. The precocious, dark-skinned incarnation of Lord Vishnu (part of the Hindu Trinity) was once directed to open his mouth by his foster mother, Yashoda, who only wanted to spot dirt but instead fainted upon seeing the entire cosmos revealed there.

The story, like any other myth and like the symbolic narratives of this book, may be apocryphal, but I’ve striven through them to drive home the point of the vastness of the universe, carrying the force of the waves that crash within and without us, which can and does sail us ashore, drown us without a trace, swirl us in a tornado, or tear us asunder on the high seas, without a moment’s thought or remorse.

How do you make sense of such a limitless world? one wonders.

What kind of solace can you draw from a world where we kill each other, not for food, or even for love, but for man-made dogmas and some rules of conduct?

I read somewhere that more people have died in the name of God than in the name of Hitler or Communism, or even the two combined. Let’s not forget, however, that Nazi Germany had God with us engraved on the belts of its soldiers. Even now during current wars, soldiers on each side are claiming God’s support of their cause.

I am not sure how they arrived at these statistics, but I read that nearly 809 million people have died in various religious wars down the course of history, and in some of the holy scriptures, there are even verses that advocate the killing of nonbelievers. Although being open-ended, these verses, like Nostradamus’s predictions, can be interpreted any which way and often have been with impunity both by believers and nonbelievers. In my observation and experience, it is much easier to wage war than peace!

I happened to attend a talk recently, where one of the key speakers, a woman, made a very interesting observation. She said the difference between being spiritual and being religious was very simple and straightforward. Religion is about materialism, what the followers can give or take from that faith. It’s also about reward for the conformists (faithfuls) and punishment for the nonconformist or other denominations or other religions.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is a more private affair; an unconditional relationship between you and your God, which is beyond doubt, beyond reason, and beyond any set rules and regulations. Spirituality is not something you can touch; it is something you can feel. Therefore, while Religion can be worn as a badge on the sleeve, Spirituality is carried secretly within the heart and often cannot be shared with anyone. It has no past, present, or future reference points or absolute dictates except the ones that you select and choose for yourself. It is a personal connection to something greater than oneself and cannot be explained by words, only through one’s unique experience.

According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.⁴ The total world population is 7,056,189,052 as of December 29, 2012.⁵ A global 2012 poll reports that 59 percent of the world’s population are religious, 23 percent are not religious, 13 percent are atheists, and 5 percent are unaccounted for.⁶ So 41 percent, or almost three billion people, are either not religious or don’t conform to organized beliefs. What does it indicate? That Religion, at least of the organized variety, offers no signpost, solace, or sense of direction to everyone. It raised questions in my mind, that if Religion can’t bind us together and can’t protect us from each other, then what can?

The Queen Of Babylon

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

—Lao Tzu, The Way of Lao Tzu,

Chinese philosopher (604–531 BC)

S HE LAID PRONE before him. Her eyes were tightly shut, her breathing was short, and she had sweaty palms; he clutched her hands tightly in his vice-like grip.

Outside, a balmy wind blew, wafting in a sweet lavender smell into the spacious room, which was beautifully done in gold flowing lace curtains, revealing the luxurious bedroom, mixed with the smell of fresh-cut roses and jasmine—a woman’s room. The meticulously cleaned, organized, and decorated room had thick opaque gold lace curtains pulled back to let in the warm sun from the large window.

However, there was something decidedly amiss. A specter of approaching death clung to the woman, every nook and cranny of the palatial castle plunging in deep, reverential sadness. There was pin-drop silence in the master bedroom, except for the occasional cooing sound of a white dove perched on the large oak tree, which was clearly visible from the large bay window overlooking the green lush, floral garden, laden with spring blossoms.

The woman suffered from acute COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which was progressive, degenerating, and menacing, as it slowly sucked the life out of her. Bare-boned and reduced to a shadow of her former beautiful self by chronic coughing spells that lasted for several death-defying moments, wracking her frail body and sapping whatever little strength was left in her, she clung fast to the last few ounces of life, gritting her teeth, and ignoring the summons of death with nothing more than a withered woman’s tenacious will.

She knew her time had come, but there was something to take care of before she could shut her eyes and go in peace. This was the moment she knew would come but avoided all these years. The moment when she could entrust and enlighten her son, who had matured into a handsome young man, ready to face the truth and deal with it in the manner he deemed best.

Suddenly, her eyes flew wide open, darting like little black marbles in hollowed sockets, as she struggled to fix her floating gaze on her son, who wore a tortured, worried expression. She swept the room with her bottomless gaze before finally settling it on her son again, who had kept a tight vigil for the past week at her side, in spite of her having the best doctors, nurses, and medical care money could buy. He wanted to also nurse her, hoping against hope, holding her hand, and clinging to her, although deep down in their hearts they both knew that her time was up and their time together was over; it had been an emotional roller coaster. Until today, she had been largely unresponsive; her bodily systems were gradually shutting down and she had almost slipped into a comatose state.

Today, however, was different. A strange glow lit up her face and there appeared to be a burst of energy coursing through her frail body. Today, she appeared to be acutely conscious of her surroundings and her son held her hand; she even pressed it gently in recognition. Suddenly, understanding flashed and for a brief spell-binding moment, as their eyes locked, she appeared healthy, aware, laughing, like her former self. Then, as if summoning her last bit of strength, she said something. The words were inaudible and her voice barely a whisper.

Mesmerized, her son watched the sudden transformation in his mother and felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Is this the moment? he wondered as a lump caught in his parched throat.

Listen, my son, and listen carefully, the voice from the bed beckoned as a frail voice came out in a labored, short tone. I don’t know how much time I have left but I want you to know something, she said.

Responding to the urgency in his mother’s voice, the young man bent closer, holding her hands close to his heart. Yet the woman gestured for him to come even closer, until his face was a few inches away from hers. This was so uncharacteristic of her. She appeared restless and anxious. But about what? he wondered.

She pointed to the handcrafted, ornately carved ivory jewelry box, which was a family treasure, sitting on her armoire. That jewelry box was precious and was always locked; her son had never seen her open it. He knew that to be special to his mother but never understood why, except it was an heirloom. She urged him to get her precious box.

She then took his hand into her frail hand and placed it on the heart-shaped locket around her neck. She gestured to him to open the locket. This locket was always worn by his mother and though it didn’t seem precious to him, since she had many more beautiful and exquisite necklaces made of valuable gems, she somehow always wore this locket around her neck. This never came