Bed Time Stories

I can more than vaguely remember, but fully recall stories when I was younger. Similar things always intrigued me and filled my heart and soul with a sense of awe and wonder. So I dreamed and continued to dream. I cannot argue though, as I have become more seasoned as a man I feel dreams have been few in number. Something inside me tells me there will be a surge coming soon, though.

I was raised in a Muslim culture when I was very young, and remember going to the mosque and observing how the men were separated from the women and children. My father was an imam, which is a prayer leader and elder of mosque. My father left this world behind when I was just four-years young. My mother always struggled between Islam and Christianity, and shortly after my father passed she converted to Christianity and that is what I have been raised on ever since. I still respect Islam and all that it encompasses.

I remember a child hood story that I felt like sharing. My mother told it to me a few times when I was young, and it has always remained with me. There might be similar stories told different ways in different cultures, so if you have ever heard something similar let me know. To the best of my ability I will try to regurgitate exactly what I interpreted...

...A man was lost in the desert--somewhere very far from Egypt--and had so much going wrong with his life, so he continued to march on through the hot desert during the feverish, hot days and cold nights. After endless days and nights. He consulted God (Allah), knowing that his life was surely coming to an end. He said something along the lines of, "Father I was struggled all my life, lost all that is most precious to me, and have ended in this never ending desert. You have remained with me through it all. I may not be remembered as a good man, but I would like to be remembered, for my days here, though not all that great but the good outweighed the bad. If this is my final request, all I ask is that you bless me." Upon his request he knelt and raised his bowed head up towards the white, empty, glowing light in the sky, otherwise known as the moon. He smiled and was taken from this earth. God blessed him by putting the imprint of his smiling face within the moon.

If you ever look at that moon do you not see a smiling face? I do, and I always wondered how it got there. Astrologists might infer that it was caused by asteroids hitting the surface, and just by chance creating an image we might say resembles that of someone's face. I would disagree. This story always filled that void. Whenever I look at the moon, and I see the smiling face, recall the man's request, and smile and ask God to bless me all the days of my life. I have no complaints.