Comes the Peace

A Little Background
My husband and I lived in Boston together for about ten years before moving to Rochester when our daughter Anna was born in 2005. This probably sounds ridiculous, but during that time we developed a very special relationship with a little boutique in a little town called Newton just outside of the city. We always knew we could count on this place to have the perfect unique gift for any person for any event in any price range at any time...and if they didn't have it, an woman named Kim would make it her mission to find it for us. Kim is a gorgeous, stylish, tiny little woman. She is the kind of person who is small in stature, soft spoken and kind hearted, a powerhouse of positive energy--she has an amazing presence-- one of those people in your life who, although peripheral, somehow has a deep impact in small, but very meaningful ways. We knew that Kim was from East Asia and would frequently travel to India, Nepal and Tibet and bring back the most amazing pieces of jewelry,textiles and art. She also had an amazing eye for local finds! Kim worked closely with Mitia (aforementioned husband) to find my engagement ring, the earrings he gave to me on our wedding day, and many subsequent gifts--each unique piece accompanied by a fabulous tale from a far away land (fair trade!). As a result, I have a small collection of deeply personal jewelry complete with stories and history that I hold dear....but, I digress!

We always thought that Kim owned the boutique, or was married to the owner and in all of our years of working together and getting to know one and other, we never new what a truly amazing survivor she was or anything about the incredible life she was leading outside of this little shop. After we left Boston, Kim opened up her own boutique two doors down from the one she had been working at. On one of our visits back to the city, we decided to stop into her brilliant (literally, as it is filled with the most beautiful textiles) new shop and say hello to our old friend. During that visit we met Kim's real husband, not the husband we had imagined for her, and he generously provided us with a copy of this book, his book that he had just completed writing. We had a nice time catching up, impulsively bought a piece of art that we fell in love with but could not really afford, and left happily back to Rochester, still having no real clue about the lives of our friend Kim, and her husband, our new friend Daja--and honestly, completely ignorant to even consider that the owners of this gorgeous shop who had brought us so much happiness and ornamented our lives so beautifully and so personally could have conceivably lived the lives so richly and heart-breakingly detailed in this book.

Comes the Peace, by Daja Meston
This book is a memoir and as the title states, a chronicle of a remarkable journey to peace and forgiveness. You will not be able to put this book down---it reads like a work of fiction as, at times, the story seems truly unbelievable. It begins with Daja's daring escape from a Chinese prison in 1999, an attempt that left him with two crushed ankles. I will not spoil the book for you by providing too many details about the story (which would be quite impossible anyway!), but his harrowing life story began many years before when his parents, hippies from California, decided that their little blue-eyed blonde baby would best be raised by Buddhists and left him with a family in Nepal when he was 2. Despite his difference in appearance, Daja thought he was a natural member of this family and only discovered the truth when they dropped him at a monastery in Tibet when he was 6. 6!! (My boys are six, I just can't imagine!) His story of physical and emotional survival, escape, recovery and search for understanding and forgiveness are remarkable on their own, add to it the story of the life of his wife Kim(referred to interchangeable as Phuni in the text)and you will have no choice but to believe in the concept of a fated existence! What these two have experienced separately in their lives is almost unimaginable, and the fact that they found each other in this world is almost inconceivable!
So....a really great story that is easy to get immersed in quite quickly--a good, good read! The thing that I like best about this book is that although the story is truly heavy in parts, it does not leave you heavy with grief and anger or with a sense of despair. What it will hopefully leave you with is a new perspective in many regards, a renewed sense of awe for the human spirit, gratitude for the life you lead and a deeper understanding of what it might mean to find peace through forgiveness.

Things I like....Comes the Peace by Daja Weston and Karma in Newton Centre, MA (2 for 1, aren't you lucky?!?!?!)