“Mi Amor” (Ibrahim’s Kindness extended)

“Mi Amor”

A silent tear slipped down Ibrahim’s cheek, followed by another tear from his other eye. Gently, Ibrahim caressed my face, his eyes staring into my soul. His voice was so sincere when he said:

“I don’t want to lose you!”

Questions darted through my mind like speeding arrows. I quickly cycled through my questions of self-doubt , and it went something along the lines of:

“Why do you care for me so much? Nobody else does.”

My inner darkness grappled with the light in my mind, and the light won, but not without a ton of confusion. Love was now in my life, and I didn’t really recognize it.

I thought I’d be better off had I never been created, all those bad things done to me coursing through my brain, attempting to twist my logic.

I had to give in to that waterfall of love, that oasis, that unknown, warm, comforting feeling in my heart. Thank God for Ibrahim, or I may never have gotten the opportunity to know what true love is.

My past is full of the turmoil of mental hospital stays, where yelling and fighting were an every day affair. I have was attacked, made fun of, and was the unwanted recipient to advances made by some of the other patients.

Perhaps mental hospital staff mean well, but I never got any better in those places. I was surrounded by other patients who were noticeably more disturbed than I was, and I felt isolation on multiple levels, the locked-in nature of the institution, the behavior of the patients, and sometimes, the aggressive and bullying nature of the minority of staff.

It is nothing short of a miracle I emerged relatively mentally intact from having been institutionalized. These memories are powerful, and when combined with times of high stress, negative thoughts can start to tear at my inner defenses, leading me to questions whose answers threaten to cast me further down into the abyss of depression, and anger towards myself.

Down I fall, feeling no hope whatsoever; then a brave arm reaches out and grabs me, breaking my fall. I am pulled into a loving embrace.

“Let me hold you,” whispers Ibrahim. “You’re not alone anymore. I’m here to help you. I love you.”

He was so sweet, and I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe I wasn’t destined for sorrow, pain, and being forgotten. Maybe Ibrahim was right. Maybe there was something more for me out there.

Ibrahim reminds me I have worth, feelings, and good qualities as a person. There is hope, but I never would’ve realized this without him, Ibrahim, my love, or as he would say, because he speaks Spanish: “mi amor.