A Life Untold is a fictional memoir based on my life story. It follows Zara Heart, who wakes up in hospital completely disorientated. She cannot understand why she is there, or even remember who she is. And why can nobody see her? All is made clear, however, when she meets the surprisingly charismatic Angel of Death’s Head Assistant, or D.A. Zara must travel back in time with D.A. and witness her life over the course of her last seven days on Earth.
Dallaa Moussallati
Well, let's go through how A Life Untold was born and how it unraveled; word by word, miraculously filling up a book full of pages within a space of a year. Three hundred and sixty-five days filled with contemplation, adventure, tears and finally, inner peace.
I've always been quite a strong character; the glass has always seemed full, even though sometimes it was evident to others it was empty. The tests I would face became more frequent the older I got. The last blow came in my late twenties when I lost everything. My children, my family's wealth, everything I fought so hard to keep, went.
I was lying on my sister's couch, unable to face the outside world. Then pain shifted to utter silence in my mind. It was almost as if my memory felt sorry for me and decided to stop replaying past events. I started to hear a faint whisper telling me I had to turn my life around. A blessing - even though everything was taken away, I still had a choice!
That was it – my thoughts changed. Things started to transition after that night. I met my husband a couple of months later, I moved to a foreign country, and I started teaching English. The pain was still there, but I decided not to let it get in the way of my ultimate goal. I then went on to have my two wonderful little girls.
It wasn’t until I had my second daughter that ghosts of the past came back to haunt me. My family sensed their positive Dallaa had disappeared once again. They asked me if I wanted to talk about what I was going through; I told them all I wanted to do was write.
That was it! A goal had been unconsciously set. I sat down with a pen and a notebook five minutes after putting the phone down. But here's the funny thing, I didn’t plan out the book, I didn’t think about what fictional characters I would add. Every word, character, and chapter magically flowed out of my pen and onto my notebook. I just wrote, and wrote, and wrote. Looking back Zara being in a coma was probably a mirror image of how I felt - trapped. The pain of my past was all bottled up; it had to come out.
To all the people who have lost their way, who have experienced the darker side of life or are fearful of following their hearts. I'm here to say, please don’t give up, there is a reason for everything. Trust yourselves, unleash your hidden talents, believe in your dreams, and go for them!
