Mina -Blog 6

Once upon a time, in a desert village near Rajasthan, India, I saw a beautiful, young woman crying in the corner of the plaza while shopping in the market for fruit.  Her pain, I noticed, was deep as she sobbed into the palms of her hands.

I asked if she needed help or wanted a shoulder to cry on and she accepted my generosity.

Here is the story she told:

She was raised by her most handsome and charismatic father whom she loved more than life.

She did everything for him and he for her.  He had recently passed away and she was devastated. Her life would never be the same. 

She was married to a man with so many of the same qualities of her father; however, she shared that this man was very self centered and wanted everything to revolve around him, his car, his clothes, his work, his sexuality, his time. I asked why then did she marry him?  She replied that he reminded her of her father. She explained that her husband was also very charismatic, worldly and cultured like her father and she was seduced by those qualities. She felt that he would become like her father and be good to her one day.  When her father passed, she became very sad and no longer had the energy to pay attention to her husband because of overwhelming grief. Her husband became intolerant and overbearing and requested her to attend to him. He ignored her time of pain.  She refused and he left her in search of another woman to provide him with  attention.  He said he did not need her love what he needed praise and motivation. 

She sat and wept.  I wept for her.  Her beauty was brilliant yet she could not see it. Her mannerisms were gentle, yet guarded for fear that she would not be enough for her husband.

She chanted over and over how she could not survive the pain.  Each week I returned, she sat in the same place; she wept and chanted “I will not survive this pain.”  A young girl happened to walk by and had a mirror in her hand.  I stopped her and asked if I could to borrow it.  She obliged me and I passed it to the weeping girl, her name was Mina. “Look in the mirror” I asked,”What do you see?”  She said, “ I see my father’s love. I cannot see myself.”   The young girl that lent her the mirror then said, “Keep my mirror. Weep no longer.”  The next time I saw the Mina she was standing tall and beautiful. Her strength and honor regained. I asked her “what of your life now?” She smiled, rolled up her sleeve and showed me a beautiful tattoo of  woman dressed in a black flowing gown, soaring high over the desert sands with her hands firmly on the reign of  her dragon.  She giggled quietly and gently and claimed, “All is well.” Mina lived happily ever after.