They Didn’t Pick Me For Duck Duck Goose

I was a little brown girl in Kindergarten in sunny Santa Cruz California. I didn’t have many friends. I was, am and always will be an outlier.

In a classroom filled with little surfer kids and one Native American friend I had named Joaquin, who was brown like me, I was excited to make new friends and pass out Christmas candies to my classmates.

At recess, when it came time to play Duck Duck Goose, we were seated in a circle and the teacher laid down the rules of the game. Strangely enough, I was never picked by the other kids. Even though I was tapped on the head several times and it would have been my turn to get up and start running around the circle, I was purposefully ignored every time it came to be my turn. Imagine how confusing this was to a little five year old me. It was almost as if the entire class had met secertly in a miniature bunker before the game, agreeing to make sure that I was never picked.

I went home that day a little disappointed in being discluded in the reindeer games.

The years that followed were only met with more distance between me and the herd. I learned what discrimiantion was early on, but never let it become an obstacle.

I had great parents as a child who encouraged me to be proud of my outlier qualities. I worked harder, was always ahead of all my homework in the classroom, and helped others with theirs when they stumbled in topics like math, writing, or even running (I was the fastest kid in school until I was about 12 when a kid named Jimmy and Matt out ran me).

Life would only get easier and harder for little outlier me.

I would be expelled and kicked out of every school I would attend. Even law school. (You will have to wait and read that story one day when I publish my book called Love Goat where all lies will indeed be revealed).

Later came this movement where the truth would become our most valuable asset.

Most of you know the story of how I ended up losing everything simply for telling the truth. Truth is not a profitable business. Exposing Pedowood and cult practices that victimized especially women and children (but spared no one) made it taboo to be my friend. It began with my work in Pedowood as an attorney to some major players, the loss of my job (after COVID), my company, and finally my home, car, all my belongings, and most recently, my health.

Your health is truly your only form of wealth.

A childhood friend of mine recently left this message for me:

God gives us more than we can handle when He wants us to rely upon Him.

This is the utmost truth for me this holiday season.

On this very day, Christmas, about five years ago, I was in the hospital with my now deceased father. He was suffering from heroin addiction. Not many people knew this about him, but I did. My father always shared with me secrets and truths that only I and he would keep forever. Many people didn’t know him like I do, and they never will. A true mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly in his personal life, he was still my father, and my chilhood hero. It was my father who was a real outlier and I was after all, my father’s daughter. RIP dad. Another story for another day.

Christmas is a time, especially for me, that brings the peace, love and heart of Christ into my soul. I gave my life over to the Lord when I first saw him standing next to my bed in 2006. He saved me then and had a message for me: tell the truth.

Fast forward to 2024, post A Fistful of Truth, He lifted me up and carried me through with his faithful servants – all of you – who have transported me back into the land of the living with prayers, support and intentions of His love the past months.

I was able to, through His blessings and Grace, and your support, raise the money needed to bring me literally back to life.

You can view my GoFundMe here 🙏🏼: https://gofund.me/07e5c015

Thank you to everyone who helped me get the medical attention I so desperately needed. I literally sold everything I own to stay alive.

I thought long and hard about sharing a photo of myself and how terrifyingly dead I looked only three months ago. But I do not want to put that image into anyone’s mind.

Be still and know is all I could hear in my heart when I would close my eyes in the hospital as machines beeped around me, IV’s dripped into my veins and nurses came and went from my room.

I almost died a few times and then some.

But He didn’t want me to leave here yet.

He told me I still had work to do.

I had a few dreams, one a clear vision while I was still awake, that I will share later when it is time. The spirit world is real. The truth is not here but there. This world is truly maya and one that is passing, fleeting in the journey of the soul.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12

The one thing I know more than ever is that we are truly not in control. Anyone who thinks that money, objects or even other people are what defines them is in for a rude awakening. Many of you already know this ultimate truth. But how often we forget due to the motion of societal rivers that sweeps us up and forces us to ride the waves of the matrix! Woe to those who don’t believe. Whatever your faith, find Him! Realize that there is a greater force than you which is the essence of you.

Little kindergarten me was lucky to have a multitude of races that came together, despite their waring ancestors, fell in love, and ultimatley resulted in me. Love is, after all, the answer. My diverse cultural background has been the biggest blessing. My obstinate and unyielding dedication to seek and know the truth has been revealed to me over a lifetime, through my relationship with Christ since a very early age.

Call on God but row away from the rocks. Indian Proverb

I want to express my love for you all this Christmas.

Christ was, after all, the biggest and most fearless outlier.

To walk with Him is not to follow the herd, but to be a shepherd to those who seek truth. Enter through the narrow gate. Sometimes, this results in barely squeezing through with scars to show for the scrapes and cuts that one may get in going through life’s rights of passage.

The steadfast journey is never an easy one. Ask those who have, as my grandmother always said, suffered early.

As I have had to walk every step and continue to do so, jobless, homeless, penniless, I have learned to trust in Him evermore. I have my health back and am getting stronger daily. It will be a long time before I can do ‘normal” things again but every step forward is a step in the direction of being able to serve my fellow brothers and sisters again is a step in His footsteps.

I am humbled, graced and loved by you all.

I hope my words carry into your hearts as yours have lifted and healed mine this Christmas. ❤️‍🩹

The biggest gift one could ever receive is the gift of life. This is what my Christmas gift is this year: my breath, my ability to walk and talk again. To write here to you. To tell you I love you all.

Merry Christmas to my loving family here and forever after.

Love and Gratitude,

🙏🏼❤️

Dilara

*Image Credit: Duck & Goose – It’s Time For Christmas (book) by Tad Hills

Categories: Uncategorized