My journey began in Iran where I was born in Rasht, the capital city of the Gilan Province. I was the second-born child, having a brother who is four years older than me. I was raised in a supportive and loving two-parent household. At the time of writing this book, my parents have been married for 37 years. In Iran, my dad worked for the government as an agricultural engineer and as a result we would relocate frequently depending on the project that he was assigned to work on. My mom stayed at home to raise my brother and me as we were from a higher socio-economic status and there was no need for her to work.

One of the most memorable places I lived in Iran was in the City of Damavand located near the Caspian Sea and in close proximity to Alborz Mountains. While living in Damavand I learned to appreciate interconnectedness with animals and nature. Due to the nature of my dad’s job, which involved taking care of various animals, plants, and trees, from an early age I learned to respect animals and nature. One day when I was pulling a leaf from a tree, my dad stopped me and explained to me that when I pull the leaf from the tree it is as if I pinch the tree really hard and it creates a sharp pain for the tree. He explained to me that “trees and plants also have feelings” and that as part of his job he attends to the needs of the trees and plants such as watering and providing them with care through the various seasons in order for the trees and plants to yield a large produce. From that day on, I became fascinated by nature and its complexities and components that are unseen to the naked eye.

While in Damavand I also developed a special connection towards loving animals. As a family, we owned about a dozen chickens and hens which we cared for outside of our house and used their eggs. Although I would be playful towards the chickens, I did not develop a deep connection with animals until my family decided to get a dog. One of my dad’s friends had to leave the country and he offered to give us his German Shepherd dog. In Iran, it is not custom to bring dogs inside the house and therefore the dog was kept outside in a closed spacious area.

I have two vividly profound memories with our German Shepherd which we named Gorgie. The previous owner recommended that as means of getting the dog to understand that he now has a new home and owner, we should keep him tied stationary outside for a week and feed him regularly. After a few nights we decided it was enough and untied him overnight. When we woke up in the morning and went to check up on Gorgie, we noticed that he was nowhere to be found. We called the owner to notify him and were puzzled by what we heard: Gorgie had somehow used his sense of smell and found his way back to his previous owner’s home which was approximately 8 kilometres away from our house. This was shocking and fascinating to me as it was a reflection of Gorgie’s loyalty to his previous owner. From that point on, I felt a special connection with animals where I learned to treat them with respect, recognizing that they also have souls which experience happiness, sadness, and various other emotions.

The other vivid memory with Gorgie was one that almost cost him his life. As a means of keeping wolves away from attacking sheep and chickens, my dad’s company would sometimes plant poisoned meat in the mountain areas to scare away the wolves and to reduce their numbers. In the middle of the night, we heard Gorgie howling by our window. He seemed very weak and in a poor condition. We immediately took him to a nearby veterinarian my dad personally knew to figure out what was wrong with him. After doing some diagnostic testing, the veterinarian indicated that Gorgie had possibly licked a poisonous substance. He pointed out that luckily he had consumed only a small amount or else he would have died right away. Nonetheless, he stated that Gorgie could potentially die unless he receives an anti-toxin shot. The unfortunate thing was that we had to wait until 9 a.m. for the pharmacy to open as there were no 24-hour emergency pharmacies for animals where we lived. For the time being, we decided to take him back home to get him some rest until the pharmacy opened up. Upon arrival at home, my mom sat beside Gorgie and cried for hours while petting him. It is a scene that I will remember for the rest of my life. During this time, my dad notified some people at his work about the incident and what happened next is astonishing; one of the elders of the area who was a well-known farmer came by to see Gorgie’s condition and she recommended that we feed him yogurt as it naturally cleans and refines the stomach through its natural bacteria and helps with digestion. We did just that and amazingly within an hour Gorgie’s condition drastically improved to the extent that he returned to his old energetic, playful self. From that incident, I recognized that Gorgie was officially a member of our family and that my parents cared for him just as much as they would care for my brother and me.

Life seemed simple and everything was going well until my parents gave me the abrupt news in early 1998 that they were planning to relocate to Toronto, Canada. Being in Grade 3 at the time, immigrating to a new country permanently was a complex topic to holistically grasp and understand its magnitude. I became angry and frustrated that I had to say goodbye to many family members and friends not knowing when I might see them again. This meant I also had to say goodbye to Gorgie; we gave him to a close family friend to take care of.

In October 1998 we left Iran and travelled to Toronto to start a new life as a family with eight suitcases, sponsored by my uncle and aunt who lived in Canada. I was ten years old and started Grade 4 upon arrival to Canada. As a young child, I did not understand many things, such as why my parents decided to leave Iran to start a new life somewhere else when we were living a comfortable life back home. It was a difficult transition for my family and me due to changes in our lifestyle accompanied with cultural changes and language barriers. My dad was not able to find a career in his professional field as his educational background and professional work experiences were not accepted as relevant and hence he settled for doing alternative precarious jobs to support our family. My mom also began working in the fast-food industry to support our family financially. Although at the time as a young child I could see the symptoms of stress in my family, I did not holistically understand the extent of sacrifices and adjustments my parents were making in terms of their lifestyle.

With maturity comes wisdom and as I grew older through reflection and contemplation I began to understand, realize, and respect my parents so much for what they had sacrificed to start a new life in Canada. They sacrificed a comfortable lifestyle in order to be able to live in a country that aligns with their personal values, morals, and ethics such as democracy and freedom of self-expression. They also wanted their children to have better opportunities in life and to live in a more democratic country that offered them their human rights. My parents’ actions demonstrated to me the importance of listening to your heart and soul and willing to take risks and sacrifice privileges to pursue one’s aspirations and dreams. By wanting to provide a better future for my brother and I, as well as certain personal freedoms for themselves, they risked it all, including a lifestyle associated with middle to upper socio-economic status to start from scratch knowing it will not be easy and nothing is guaranteed. What amazes me up until this day is my parents’ positive attitude towards the hardships they experienced as part of settling in Canada. We are now considered a middle-class family, but it took many sacrifices and hardships to get there. My parents are my role models as they have demonstrated to me the importance of always being grateful and to embrace the difficult times as part of the journey to achieving one’s goals and attaining success. Hardships are not end-points but rather middle points and processes as part of our larger life journey. These various life experiences as a collective, including my family’s journey to Canada from Iran, have made me realize that happiness cannot be bought but rather co-exists in our interactions with the world and the meaningful relationships we build and maintain throughout our lifetime with others.

The start of Grade 12, my final year of high school, was a dark period in my life where a series of major negative events occurred within a short span of time profoundly impacting my development, growth, and level of maturity. The first event was the passing away of my grandmother due to cancer which was the first time I had to deal with death on a personal level. This had a profound impact on me as it made me question the purpose of life and why people suffer. I would contemplate these questions daily and read many religious and spiritual books in order to make sense of death. I came to realize that death is part of the cycle of life and once we accept this, we can live more in tune within each moment by appreciating all experiences whether positive or negative for their essence and what they invoke in us. As a means of coping with my grandmother’s death, I played lots of basketball and I got a tattoo in her memory, even though at the time I was under the age of consent to get a tattoo. I did it anyway knowing that my parents opposed having tattoos due to cultural and religious values.

Shortly after receiving the news of my grandmother’s death, I found out my best friend was arrested and placed in jail awaiting trial for committing numerous illegal activities. I knew what he had done was wrong and that he had to face the consequences, but seeing him behind bars and how it impacted him and his family tore me apart. Not being able to talk to him on a daily basis and do the things we used to do made me angry and sad. I would compensate by writing him letters, visit him often in jail, and attend as many court dates as possible. We would get small joys out of our informal interactions such as simple eye contacts and hand gestures during trials at court. I learned through such experiences and his stories from jail that freedom is a privilege. I learned not to take things for granted, even small things such as being able to eat whenever you want. It was during this phase in my life that I began writing poetry as a means of channelling the tsunami of emotions I was experiencing from within. Listening to poetry and spoken word moved my soul and spirit by acknowledging the pains and emotions I was experiencing. I found inspiration in poetry and began writing to constructively express my thoughts, feelings, and emotions and to channel my energy into a positive outlet rather than allowing it to burst into arguments with others in my life such as teachers at school.

This process of healing, mourning, learning, and coping with loss and death was not smooth and linear. What was happening in my life outside of school largely impacted my behaviour and mannerism in school with my teachers and those in positions of authority. I was being more resistant and disruptive than usual. In retrospect, this could be attributed to the range of feelings and emotions I was trying to make sense of as a young teenager as well as the physical changes my body was experiencing going through puberty. These factors collectively influenced my decision-making, especially when I found myself in an intense situation where I had to make a quick judgement under peer pressure. Not being able to think straight, I was involved with an opportunistic theft where a couple of the members of our varsity high school basketball team stole some items from another school we were visiting as part of attending a basketball tournament. The police were involved and they were able to piece together what happened. This incident brought negative attention to a school which had an established identity of being a great academic school. As a consequence for my actions, I was offered a choice by the administrators at my high school: to serve a lengthy suspension of 30 plus days or transfer schools and start fresh at a new school without any note going under my student transcript regarding the theft incident. I chose the latter.

It was not easy breaking the news to my parents of what took place and why I needed to transfer schools midway through my high school senior year. They had sacrificed so much for me to receive a quality education and I was disappointing them. In retrospect, although difficult, those events built resiliency in me and gave me an opportunity to mature and gain insight and knowledge about life, who I am, and what I wanted to accomplish. Above all, these events contributed to making me a more spiritual person where I began living in the moment, feeling and appreciating interconnectedness to all life forms known and unknown, and gaining faith in understanding “everything happens for a reason.” When one door closes, another one opens. I responde...