As I followed from childhood into teenagehood, I began finding astronomy and engineering interesting. Every afternoon, after Mama made dinner, I walked outside and plopped down on the grass. I looked up to the setting sky. It was… an escape from reality, and often found myself thinking, “Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?”

The night of October 31st, 1975, while I was watching the sky, a breeze grazed pass me, as if a storm was coming. I felt as if the wind was telling me to follow it, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I rose from my place and marched alongside the gust of wind. And where did we end up? In the United Kingdom, far, far from my own home.

Weeks of endless searching for a way home went by, and it seemed helpless that I’d ever find decent shelter without any pounds. And actually, I grew to love the situation. It felt free, without rules or school. This is where I could start dreams and realities I hadn’t experienced back home. Being away seemed like the life I wanted, and I told myself that it was the one Mama would’ve wanted as well. I was aware of how she must have felt, worried sick for me. I wrote her anonymously, saying, “Carry on as if nothing really matters”.

Everything in my new life seemed quite nice, except for a bit of starvation. That was until months later when winter arrived. The winds picked up, frigid and spine-chilling. Without shelter, I stood on the end of busy streets, shivering, and hoping that someone would pick me up. My body ached. It felt like the end. With no money, no food, no shelter, I was a goner.

One night, near dusk, I lifted my eyes conveniently. I saw the little silhouette of a man heading down my way. My hopes turned up. Down the road, some people were jiving to some Latin music. Couples young and old were doing the fandango. It made me smile and remember what life with Mama was like, for she and I would dance to music all the time.

Little did I know that the man who had been walking the street had been standing behind me. “Young man, what are you doing in this cold?” he asked, concerned.

I shook my head, sighing. “I have no money. I’m poor. I’m just a poor boy. Mama hasn’t written to me in a long, long time.”

The man smiled. “Bismillah will provide.”

Without another word, he walked away. I furrowed my eyebrows. God will provide?

I stood on that road for forty days and forty nights, decoding what “Bismillah will provide” meant. In the end, I never found my way home, growing up on the streets of the United Kingdom, young and poor. They called me Poor Boy. Nothing really matters to me.