The Mystical and Magical Island of Malta

                      How Adversity Strengthens Character

Malta is a beautiful, crazy, formidable vibrant island whose energy will haunt your spirit forever dare you lay your foot print on its earth.   The natural beauty of this island is unforgettable.    Yet, the five years my mother spent raising our tribe in Malta single-handedly, after our father immigrated to America awaiting citizenship (yes in those days it took five years for citizenship and we were in a quota line), are years I’ll never forget.  I was 5 years old when our father left the island to immigrate to America.  I was 10 when we re-united.   Those five years were marked by moments of hardship and incredible sacrifice.  And tremendous growth.

The most heartbreaking of all was the motorcycle accident involving my two eldest brothers. Both of them were spirited, passionate, impossibly handsome, and brilliant—full of life and energy.  The younger had very curly blonde/brown hair with brown eyes (as a child he was always chosen by our Church to play the role of Jesus during Christmas holidays) and the elder with pitch black hair and and haunting very large blue eyes!  They had the eye of most women in the village.  They were two “wild cards” on the island!   Yet one fateful day, they collided on their individual motorcycles at high speed, coming around the same corner from opposite directions! The odds of this happening were so slim, yet it did. I remember that it seemed like the whole village gathered at our doorstep, layers and layers of people outside our front door waiting, holding their breath, some bent on their knees as the entire village prayed for my brothers to regain consciousness.

The younger of the two, already battling tuberculosis healed faster than the elder.   But tuberculosis eventually claimed his life far too young, at the age of 25. With his death, our tribe was reduced to seven. The elder’s recovery was nothing short of grueling. His eyes, swollen and bloodied, became a terrifying mass of purple and red, and for weeks, he couldn’t see.   Yet when I visited his bed side, he sensed my presence and would identify me correctly from my other siblings before I approached his bed nor uttered a sound.   The neurological and emotional damage that followed haunted him for the rest of his life. He never truly fully recovered. And when his life was eventually cut short, it was at the hands of a corrupt system—the CIA, whose greed and manipulation took yet another member of our family.  Now we were down to six.   Both their souls left their physical bodies.   It is these six that immigrated with my mother to join our father in America.

This is not trauma….these are the building blocks that formed the foundation for my character………………………I AM WHO I AM because of THEM.

I cannot begin to imagine what it was like for my mother to carry this burden, alone.   Here she was, a mother who had already lost two sons (one at birth and one in womb), now faced with the terrifying possibility of losing two more children. She had no partner by her side at the time, no one to lean on. My father, who was thousands of miles away in America working on his citizenship to be able to bring us to America for “a better life” as they often told us, was unable to be there for her.   And how horrifyingly helpless he must have felt at such a distance knowing the terrifying situation of his family in Malta.  And yet, my mother—though broken and fragile—kept us together.   She never stopped cooking three nourishing meals and drawing up drinking water from the wells.  There is not a day I do not think of them.  I will never forget hearing her wailing and crying  when she thought we were asleep! I often wonder how she managed the pain, the fear, and the weight of it all. How did she hold on? How did she keep her heart from shattering, again and again? The strength and resilience she must have had, to face such losses with no one to lean on…….yet with 8 children leaning on her!    it's beyond what I can fully comprehend.   Certainly I know that life’s lessons come from life’s hardest moments.   I took it all in even as a child of 8 and watched it unfold.  What does it all mean?  Even then I realized that this is the 3-dimensional aspect of life.  We “die” when we fulfill our soul’s purpose….an akashic purpose.

This is not trauma….these are the building blocks that formed the foundation for my character………………………I AM WHO I AM because of THEM.

My mother was the embodiment of bravery.   On the surface she always seemed composed when I know internally she was broken.   She was silent, very internal and strong.  She was fierce in her independence, unwavering in her strength. She was grounded in a way that made you feel like nothing could break her. But behind her strength, there was a tenderness, deep and unspoken sorrow, and a depth of wisdom that only those of us close to her could see.  Ma (which is what we called our mother) was also an extraordinary Mediterranean cook, and a “most accomplished seamstress” (according to my brother with whom I joyfully reminisced recently) who poured her love into every meal and every piece of clothing she made for us. I can still see her, sitting at the sewing machine, stitching together clothes that would be worn with pride.   She sewed while we slept so by morning she would present to us our new garments!   I don’t have a single memory of shopping for clothes as a child in Malta; they were all made by Ma’s hands—clothing that told the story of our lives. She made us beautiful wool coats, each stitch a symbol of her love and care.

This is not trauma….these are the building blocks that formed the foundation for my character………………………I AM WHO I AM because of THEM.

But, of course, the memory that lingers most is the one of my father’s leather shoe store. By day, he worked at the dockyard on the ships, and in the evenings, he ran a leather shop where he crafted every shoe himself like a beautiful piece of art.  I loved those sandals.  He made “Jesus sandals”!   I can still remember the smell of fresh leather, so rich and warm. Even now, whenever I step into a local leather shop here in my small town, I inhale deeply, and for a moment, I am transported back to Pa’s (which is what we called our father) shop. That smell will forever remind me of him, of the love and skill he poured into every shoe, and of the memories that shaped me.   From Ma and Pa is where I acquired my work ethic, my resilience and my inner strength.  They epitomized hard work and decency!

Yet, despite everything, the happiest memories I have are those where our tribe would come together to create something joyful. We would craft massive kites from bamboo, and with excitement in our hearts, we’d fly them for hours from the flat roof of our home, which also doubled as the place where my mother raised chickens and rabbits. We truly lived off the land—there was a beauty in that, a simplicity that made those moments feel so pure. We would race across the island on scooters we made ourselves—wooden frames with bearings from Valletta, our local capital. The wind would rush through our hair as we sped across the island, free and full of life.   We were not glued to our smartphones in those years or addicted to TV.  We would play with marbles in the streets or Bocci  and hopscotch on the sidewalk!   We spun wooden tops by winding a string around it and letting it lose at high speed or played Zibeg (a beads game). We would gather in groups of four  passing around a Cat’s Cradle.  We created mud pies at the ocean and built sand castles at the beach which we visited most days.  Many things happen on and in the waters of Malta including frequent sitings of sharks!!!   Those are the memories I hold closest—those moments of carefree joy that my mother made possible for us singlehandedly despite everything else.

This is not trauma….these are the bricks that formed the foundation for my character………………………I AM WHO I AM because of THEM.

You choose how you want to look at your life….you can be a force of nature or a wallowing pitiful energy clod of ailments complaining that your life is the responsibility of someone else.  We all have a profound human history.  How we interpret it is up to us.   The mountain is YOU.  My life is a splendid torch because of EVERY experience I encountered which I saw  as another sturdy brick building the foundation of my character and resilience.    It matters only that you LOVE.  I never look back.   I do not live in the past.  I only allow the past to empower me not to break me.  It matters only that we LOVE.

………..….these are the bricks that formed the foundation for my character………………………I AM WHO I AM because of THEM.