always live in hope

that's what jacqueline gillespie would write in the front of copies of her book, when she signed them for people. in my copy that i've got here [that pic above is from google-image] she's underlined the always. she didn't sign if for me, i got it in a second-hand bookshop for $15. it's a good read. like a lot of women who married muslim men, i went through a stage of being somewhat perversely attracted to reading all the horror stories, of kidnappings and abuse, of running away across mountains with your child strapped to your back type stuff. of confiscated passports and threats along the lines of "you can leave, but the children stay with me."

i am so happy for jacqueline and her daughter, shah. to be reunited after 14 years, of waiting and wondering and no contact. she would send them birthday and christmas presents and videod messages, and never hear anything back. as far as i know, for 14 years, she never heard anything back. how awful that must have been. to think that people might be brainwashing your daughter and son, telling them bad things about you, that you don't love them anymore.

just not knowing.

shah was kidnapped at the age of 6, so little and vulnerable. and needing her mummy so much. now she's 20. we still need our mum, for as long as they are alive.

and this is what her father had to say, the malasian prince:

It's only natural that she wants to visit her mother.
She is a big girl now, going to be 21.
She wants to be with her mother, so what is there for me to say?

so in his mind what he did was perfectly ok. it was so cruel and heartless. i wonder what he's done to the son, iddin. why doesn't iddin want to see his mother?

it broke my heart to read the book, and now i feel a sort of joy, but also like i want to cry.

great heaving racking sobs.

what is it about mothers and daughters?