![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyThe passage I mentioned...
I also learned a lesson from my cat, Sarah. She was black like me and we were constant companions. I read my lessons to her; I took her for walks to the sea. I made clothes for her, bathed her and brushed her like an infant. Sarah was my child. When she had her first litter of kittens I acted as midwife. I was devoted to the kittens. When one died I gave him a Moslem burial and visited his grave daily. Then one day I discovered a great big chicken eating the flowers off my kitten's grave. I caught him and in my childish fury wrung his neck. The incident caused an uproar around the house; finally the neighbour was dutifully told that her chicken had violated my rights of property. My mother insisted that I dispose of the kittens. After some searching I found good homes for them. Then nature took its course and my cat became pregnant again. My mother was determined not to turn our home into a maternity hospital again, so she seized the cat, put her in a sack, and told my uncle to take her as far away as possible. I cried and pleaded with her, but she was unyielding. Uncle carried out the mission. I was catless for nearly one year.
In the spring of 1954, I was ten years old. On a bright Sunday morning on my way home from school, I saw my cat, Sarah, striding majestically on the top of the arch of a dilapidated building. I was overcome and rushed towards her, not completely certain that it was Sarah. It was indeed my cat and I welcomed her with open arms. The whole family was overjoyed and regarded her return as miraculous. On Monday morning the teacher asked us to write an essay on something very important that had happened in our own lives. I was pleased to have the chance to write on the return of my "dove to the ark". I wrote about the story of the flood, comparing it to the Zionist flooding of Palestine and portraying my cat as the "dove of peace" that foretold of the ebbing of the tide. I felt that if my cat could find her way back to me after one year, I ought to be able to find my way back to a liberated Palestine. My teacher, also a Palestinian, thought the sentiment was noble and elevating and tried to instill in me a more scientific approach to the homeland. But to a child of ten the homeland was a dream to excite the imagination, not an attainable goal. -- Leila Khaled, "My People Shall Live: The autobiography of a revolutionary"
I also learned a lesson from my cat, Sarah. She was black like me and we were constant companions. I read my lessons to her; I took her for walks to the sea. I made clothes for her, bathed her and brushed her like an infant. Sarah was my child. When she had her first litter of kittens I acted as midwife. I was devoted to the kittens. When one died I gave him a Moslem burial and visited his grave daily. Then one day I discovered a great big chicken eating the flowers off my kitten's grave. I caught him and in my childish fury wrung his neck. The incident caused an uproar around the house; finally the neighbour was dutifully told that her chicken had violated my rights of property. My mother insisted that I dispose of the kittens. After some searching I found good homes for them. Then nature took its course and my cat became pregnant again. My mother was determined not to turn our home into a maternity hospital again, so she seized the cat, put her in a sack, and told my uncle to take her as far away as possible. I cried and pleaded with her, but she was unyielding. Uncle carried out the mission. I was catless for nearly one year.
In the spring of 1954, I was ten years old. On a bright Sunday morning on my way home from school, I saw my cat, Sarah, striding majestically on the top of the arch of a dilapidated building. I was overcome and rushed towards her, not completely certain that it was Sarah. It was indeed my cat and I welcomed her with open arms. The whole family was overjoyed and regarded her return as miraculous. On Monday morning the teacher asked us to write an essay on something very important that had happened in our own lives. I was pleased to have the chance to write on the return of my "dove to the ark". I wrote about the story of the flood, comparing it to the Zionist flooding of Palestine and portraying my cat as the "dove of peace" that foretold of the ebbing of the tide. I felt that if my cat could find her way back to me after one year, I ought to be able to find my way back to a liberated Palestine. My teacher, also a Palestinian, thought the sentiment was noble and elevating and tried to instill in me a more scientific approach to the homeland. But to a child of ten the homeland was a dream to excite the imagination, not an attainable goal. -- Leila Khaled, "My People Shall Live: The autobiography of a revolutionary"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 10:54 pm (UTC)*nods* It did to me, because of all the people I've read who would say something like that and mean it.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 01:41 pm (UTC)