كافر
I meant to post this a few weeks back. But I think it's appropriate for any Monday in the year.
Many years ago I decided to go on a cruise … by myself. Many people would not have made the choice to travel on a large boat across the globe amongst many strangers by themselves. At the time, I considered it a bold choice. I did it because I wanted to challenge myself socially. I figured the whimsical side of me would find some sort of adventure from this. For 6 days and 7 nights I traveled on a cruise ship to the Grand Cayman Islands and Mexico.
The cool thing about Carnival Cruises is that they seat you with complete strangers every single day for all of your planned meals. There were two families I sat with at my table - a wealthy man who had owned thousands of mobile homes in Kentucky and was taking his wife, daughters and their boyfriends with; and a military veteran who was traveling with his wife. Luckily for me, the Kentucky family were huge basketball fans, so we got along quite well. The military veteran stood out to me because he had a huge tattoo in Arabic across his arm that you could not ignore because it said a word that is frowned upon in Islam (كافر).
Over the course of that 6 day period I got to know each of these people pretty well, and they me. I got especially close to the military veteran who just so happened to be a high level SCUBA diver. He told me about some of the SCUBA expeditions he had gone on both for leisure and while he was in the military. He spoke so highly of SCUBA that he got the whole family from Kentucky to go with him one day on a SCUBA trip. One of the boyfriends from Kentucky brought his GoPro and recorded the expedition and was showing me the recording at dinner that same night. It was on that day I became fascinated with the underworld.
I had always been a good swimmer, so the water didn't scare me. But I had never been exposed to SCUBA diving through any of my friendships or connections prior to this. As the only person at the table who didn't SCUBA, I felt some sort of obligation to know what it is everybody was so excited about. Everyone at the table encouraged me, and one of the boyfriends even gave me his GoPro to use for my first SCUBA expedition. The very next morning, I signed up to scuba in Cozumel, Mexico.
It was this experience that absolutely changed my life. After taking the hour long course, and going under (at a pretty shallow depth), I got a taste of what the world is like in the deep blue. I felt at peace - creatures of different colors, shapes and sizes swimming every which way almost in some celestial underworld harmony. I was fascinated. And best of all, I got it all on tape.
I was so grateful to have experienced this. I realized at this point that I had to continue to scratch this scuba itch. Not too long after that cruise, I got my P.A.D.I license and have been diving deeper and deeper ever since.
After my scuba journey I became the talk of the dinner table. It was the most animated our table had been now that everyone at the table had done SCUBA. We all had this military vet to thank.
On my last dinner I decided to ask him why he had the كافر tattoo on his arm. He had mentioned that when he served in the Middle East, the civilians would always call him that word. Once he figured out what it meant, he devoted his time to learning more about Islam. He taught himself Arabic and actually started performing the five daily prayers. Although the civilians initially used the term to deride him, over time they grew a liking to him and everyone knew him as the كافر who actually the polar opposite of one. His nickname stuck, although now they used it as a term of endearment. He said he wanted to tattoo كافر on his arm to remember his time there and his immersion in Islamic and Middle Eastern culture.
When I think of veterans, I think of my friend, كافر, who I met on a cruise. I routinely humble myself with this story because I thought I was being bold by going into the unknown (on a cruise) and trying to immerse myself in the unknown. I realized that this is what كافر and many of our military do routinely for a living. And thankfully, some get to live to tell the stories to others, so that civilians like myself (and everyone at that table) can travel the seas and discover a passion for SCUBA.
This is what comes to mind when I think of Veteran's day.
Salute.