A Life Journey

By Fadwa K. Naser

Author Fadwa Naser recounts her experiences and life stories in A LIFE JOURNEY to leave it as a Legacy to her grandchildren and great grandchildren and for generations to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664199996

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Copyright © 2021 by Fadwa K. Naser.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/17/2021

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

A Life Journey Number 1

12 Years Old Fadwa K. Naser

Germany, 1988

Curacao 9/6/1978

Fadwa In front of her own house in Castro-Valley California

Egypt 1980

Tower of London

Canberra, Australia

Amman, Jordan

Brooklyn, New York 6/6/1978

For my children, grandchildren and great grandchild, Leila.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Mr. Blake Whitehead for dedicating his time to help with improving my English reading, for his understanding and encouragement. My deepest appreciation and respect.

To my children, Hope, Faith, Steve, and Paul, to all of you my tremendous love. The best memory in my life was when you all were young. We all grew up together, and we enjoyed our simple life back then. Our faith in God, in his will, not ours, was an umbrella protecting us from too many storms howling over our heads. Great thanks for all of you from the bottom of my heart. Joy, peace, and love. Be supportive of each other.

My daughter-in-law hinted to me in the statement, Why don’t you tell my children (her children) about your childhood and the way you lived back then? I was thinking for a while, then I got the inspiration to write about my second book, A Life Journey.

A LIFE JOURNEY NUMBER 1

1939

I remember the joy, I remember the pain, and I’m loving and living life over again.

I think of the years all too few, and I accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was born the third girl to my parents. It meant disaster for all Birzeitians. At that time, to have a boy was much more appreciated, as the peasant people needed the boys. They were needed to help with work on their farms and in their fields, and to carry on the name of the family. Through the Second World War, I was told that my mother used to suffer tremendously. She used to dig long nails in the wall’s corners, hang a rope, and wrap it with a blanket to make it as a hammock instead of a cradle for my brother, who was born two years after me. When he was born, everybody was so happy it was a boy!

I was three years old. My brother and I both got the red measles. He couldn’t handle the disease. He passed away at the age of two. I was three years old. My father was very sad about losing his only son, because he was the only son my mother had. He passed away two months after losing their son.

I remember that day vividly when my father died. They brought him from the hospital and put his dead body in the middle of the room, while the women sat around the casket moaning. They brought us from my half-brother’s house to say farewell to him. She carried me up to reach and kiss the dead body of my dad lying on his bed in the middle of the room. I was very young and knew nothing about death. I remember the women were wearing black.

The minute they saw us three toddlers coming into the room, they raised their voices and wailed loudly because we had become fatherless. But to me at that time, I did not know he had been in the hospital for most of his final days. I got scared and was trembling and shivering. I reacted to the fear. My legs started flaking and itching. Then my mother got mulberry leaves. She mixed some dough, spread it on the mulberry leaves, and wrapped the mixture on my legs for treatment to help absorb the heat and the infection. What a wonderful way to heal.

All that happened during the time of the feud between the Ottoman Army and the British Army. In Palestine, the atmosphere was very stressful, fearful, and poverty stricken. Birzeit was under British control and followed their regime. It was one of the other villages and cities that had another school beside the Catholic school. I used to go to a Catholic school, and I grew up getting an education in elementary school with nuns as teachers.

There were three of us living with a faithful mother, a self-made woman supporting four of us as a single mother. We were living in a small village with an Arabic name meaning wail of oil. Electricity was the light from the carocal lamps. The water source was the donkey once a week, pouring the water into our jar. The peasant residents were carrying the jars (jarrah) on their heads, walking all the way till they got to their homes. They walked maybe more than a mile, some of them less. About the stove, my mother used the carousel (babour) for daily cooking. Or she cooked on wood outdoors in the summer season. She did this especially when she had to make a grape jam, and likewise for all kinds of fruit, depending on the season.

The dishwasher and washer were our hands; the dryer was God’s hands. If we were lucky, the sun would come up only during the summer season. There were no cars. Our legs were our cars. And the variety of food was very limited. If we were lucky, we got lamb meat once a week on Sundays or on the holy days. On the weekdays we lived happily on the garden harvest. Most of the time my mother asked me to get some spinach or rhubarb and Swiss chard from the garden. I was told that my dad used to be a farmer and a very good hunter.

I could not sleep all night. The day after, I ran a fever, the consequences were that I had a rash all over my body that ended up on both legs. The infection was very painful and ugly-looking. My mother said that it was from a bad reaction, You will get better, my sweetheart. She picked up a few mulberry leaves and mixed flour, made a dough, spread it on the leaves, and wrapped it on my legs. God was with me and healed me within a month.

We had no monthly income. We were blessed to have a godly mother. She was our father, mother, provider, and she was a very good seamstress. She sewed clothes for a small amount of money, but it was enough to take care of our expenses. We went to school just walking distance from our house. Our house was just one huge room that had been divided into a kitchen, bedroom, and family room beside storage rooms. They were divided by a wall that was built from clay and had been made into three small storage rooms next to each other. We used them as storage for the harvest. After the harvest, the lentils were stored in one of them, called number one for the lentils. Number two was for the grain, and number three was for the barley harvest. Each of these storage rooms had small holes in the bottom so we could take whatever we needed. And on the top were wider holes so we could fill the rooms with the grain, barley, and lentils.

There were no windows in that big house. There was a small square hole on the top of the wall just big enough for a gun to go through. You may be wondering, but wait till I tell you what was happening! I now have to get some water please. I get a dry mouth when I remember those days, because I remember how much my mother suffered through World War II due to the Turkish soldiers, who at that time were attacking Birzeit’s residents, especially my great-grandfather, Abd Allah Kassis. My father’s name was Ishak Abd Allah Kassis.

My classmates, who were my friends, were talking in church about their fathers when their fathers passed down the aisle. They kept whispering to each other, That is your father. I was thinking, Dear Lord, where is my father? In the first period of school we had Bible study once a week, and had to read a verse from the Bible and memorize it. My favorite verse was the twenty-third Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Since that day, I have been looking for the Lord as my Father and Jesus as my Savior. (Now, my dearest grandchildren, you just want to hear more about your grandmother’s childhood memories!)

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12 YEARS OLD

FADWA K. NASER

I n 1946, both of my sisters and I (the three of us were young) went to Yafa to visit our half-brother and his family, who used to live in a house in an orange orchard. We had a very good time with them, especially when we went with our niece to pick oranges. I used to take my hairpin and pocket the orange and roll it to get softer. Then I would be sucking it nearly all day long, sucking it and eating fresh orange with enjoyment.

And you want to ask me how we got there? There was a truck on the line between Birzeit and Yafa. Our mother paid the owner of the truck to take us to visit our brother. The driver was a friend of our brother’s. In the open truck, there were only three of us, and we needed to pee. Where? And how? Then we decided to do it in the truck, and we did it. Until now I have not forgotten the way we were laughing. Watching the urine rolling every time the truck took a turn was so funny and unforgettable.

A week after we got to Yafa, my sisters decided to go to the Mediterranean Sea with their friends. I insisted on going with them. I was the youngest, and eventually my oldest sister agreed to let me go with them. I got so excited. When we got to the Mediterranean shore, the four of them took off their shoes and I was ready to take off mine. My oldest sister said, Faye, you are a little girl. You can’t walk in the water. Stay here by the shore and take care of our shoes. I got disappointed and unhappy at that moment, but we had been raised to respect the oldest and obey.

One day my mother asked me to go to the west of Birzeit. I was going to the west of Birzeit where three of my half-brothers and one half-sister used to live in their own houses next to each other. I was so happy to go there, walking all the way by myself. It was around a mile away from my house. I was looking forward to playing with my nephews and nieces. The weather was nice and breezy, and all of a sudden the wind blew up and started a howling storm of gusty wind. I panicked. I lost my enthusiasm, and my happiness faded. I had a scary feeling. I almost cried, and I asked the Heavenly Father to keep me safe. I was caught in the middle of the road, facing a strong, gusty, nasty wind all alone. It was a storm passing by. I prayed. God, the Heavenly Father, answered my prayer. The wind gusts slowed down, and I was able to continue walking until I reached my destination safely and soundly.

One day, I remember it was a weekend. We were having breakfast eggs and fresh bread, warm, coming from a public bakery. I heard our hen making an announcement, saying that she laid an egg. I got up and ran as fast as I could, cheering for the hen for giving us eggs. By the time I reached the third outdoor stairs, I fell all the way down. The result of that fall was that I had a very big gash in my right wrist. The blood was running down to my elbow. I looked at it and it was deep, very deep. Immediately I pressed with my left hand on my right wrist, using tremendous pressure to stop the blood. I went back to my mother holding my right hand with the left hand. My mother could not believe that I did not cry or scream; she was shocked. Then she ground coffee beans and filled the wound, believing the coffee would help stop the bleeding. Then she cleaned the excess coffee from it and wrapped it in a piece of leftover material.

Because of that incident, I got sick leave for one week. When I went back to school, all my classmates welcomed me with big hugs. It was an overwhelming, joyful moment in my heart. After two months, I was healed and left with a scar around my right wrist until now.

At the very beginning of the winter season, specifically at the first drop of rain, it was known that the snails usually came out from under the small rocks. At that time. My mother used to save cans of sardines, wash them, and keep them. Are