Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A Dove Has Flown

One of the wonders of the internet is the ability to keep up with friends of ours from all over the world...and to make these friends in the first place. Many years ago when I first started blogging, Leila Abu-Saba posted some comments on my blog and we became net friends. We followed each other's blogs and when we discovered Facebook we connected there as well. For quite a few years, Leila was battling first breast cancer and then liver cancer as well and just recently she lost her fight to stay with us. I've been having phone line problems and have been just checking my email so I missed the news and this morning was shattered to realise that she was gone.

The title to this piece is a link to Leila's blog post which was a meditation on cancer, forgiveness, and politics. I don't know anyone who could have expressed this better. Friends of hers are making sure that her books get published, the task that she was trying hard to finish in her last days. Look for them and let her words, thoughts, and spirit live on.

Leila's manifesto for hope is a good place to start.

copyright 2009 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

8 comments:

Dina said...

I read Leila's manifesto for hope, with tears. I'm sorry you lost such a friend.

Niki said...

My condolences on the loss of your friend.

Connie said...

You have our deepest sympathies for your loss.

Linda said...

What a beautiful uplifting story, I'm just so sad it ended so early. You have my sincere condolences.

Ben Morales-Correa said...

I too experienced the loss of a good friend recently. My sympathies.

Irfan Mahmood said...

Very true and amazing. Good content and appitizer.

Anonymous said...

I started reading Leila's blog after "meeting" her in The Sun Magazine. I missed her recently. I had no idea she'd passed until I read your post. Thanks for passing on the sad news. I hope someone will tell the editors of Sun.

I am an African American woman in Texas who believes that we are more alike than different. I'm not sure what attracted me to Leila's blog, because the only clues I have to an ancestral homeland are DNA results that tell me my maternal lineage traced back to African and Southern India. I try to imagine what it must be like to grieve for the loss her family has experienced. I came close to understanding each time I listened to Leila. Then I would forget, and I would have to come back to see what else she had to say. I will return often.

I hope she has found peace. I will miss her.

Carolien said...

Please accept my sincerest condolences on the loss of your dear friend Leila.