Resa Kahn – For the Love of Beauty – Founded in 2021.
Non-Profit - To pay it forward - changing lives.
CEO & Founder: Resa Kahn
This is my platform to give gratitude, to pay it forward, to give back! Resa Kahn-for the love of beauty is not just focussed on external beauty but also on internal beauty. All things that make us beautiful, empowers, heals, gives confidence to face a brighter tomorrow.
My parents got divorced when I was six, my mother worked two jobs to provide a better life for my brother and me. By the age of 15, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I instantly became an adult. My brother, a professional cyclist, racing abroad, and I had to take responsibility for our mother. Catching a bus at night to hospital to visit her, going to school by day, cleaning, cooking and upon her release from hospital nursing her.
The cancer went into remission and returned, as it often does but my mother continued to work for us. She taught me that you fight to survive in life, fight hard with all you have inside and keep faith. It was not easy with my father absent and left scars, as I always yearned for what my friends had, the complete family. The absence of a father most definitely affected my security in relationships. I fell pregnant and had a beautiful son, Ryan.
I married and it was bliss. Years on, my husbands’ moods changed several times daily. It was strange, as this was not the man I knew. It started changing to many times a day from a wonderful man to an aggressive, uncaring man. I started living in fear, along with the rest of my household and staff at work. Then the abuse started, verbal emotional and physical. For almost two years we lived in fear, not knowing what would happen next. Being a ‘bona fide’ hunter, he had many guns and ammunitions on the premisses.
I was held up in my house for many days with handguns, hunting knives and even shot at in my garage. I was hit several times and so was my son, only to be asked later, who had hurt us so badly. I was asked why I never left. I was threatened often that if I was ever to leave, a bullet would take us out. Fear – kept me there.
One morning in 1999 I woke up to being told that it was our ‘last’ day. Looking into the eyes of my late husband I realised that something was very wrong. I can still remember clearly that I felt numb, the blood in my body felt as if it was draining. He explained to me that he had decided that he was taking our lives. It was all planned! He would strangle me to death then slit my sons’ neck with his hunting knife, there after do the same to my mom. His 303 Winchester magnum was loaded with four bullets which he would then use for each one of us to ensure that we were dead. There after turn the gun on himself.
My heart was racing. I knew I had to fight. I did not know what to do but I had to fight for my life! I ran to the bedroom door, realising that he had locked it although the key was still in the lock. He dragged me away by my wrists to the ensuite bathroom, knocking my wrists against the side of the bath. I manage to get away to the other side of the bed. This continued for almost an hour. I managed to get to the door and turn the key, running down the passing. He grabbed hold of me, dragging me down the stairs by my hair.
On this level in the reception area of our home, he kicked my right-side ribs and then got on top of me. I recall seeing my son screaming for him to stop and my mom hitting him from behind. He continued to put his hand around my neck to strangle me. I recall feeling dizzy and starting to lose consciousness, feeling blood trinkling from my ears.
Next, I felt slapping in my face, my mom dragging me out of the kitchen with my son in front of us. God must have been watching over us, as our house boy had heard my mom and sons’ screams and came to the rescue with his house key. He had opened the house, pushed the security alarm, and distracted my late husband.
We were out of the big gates and in the street when the security company arrived, followed by the police and more. Safely taken back to the house, police seated us in the dining room and my husband taken to the main bedroom. Whilst police were taking our statements, they were watching him from our bedroom balcony. I heard shouting from the police, followed the police officers that were interviewing me up the stairs, down the passage to the main bedroom.
My late husband had locked the door. As they kicked the door open, I witnessed him shoot himself with his 303 Winchester Magnum. It is a sight that I will never forget for as long as I live.
As I lay there with my late husband trying to strangle me, I prayed to God to spare me, spare my son and my mom. I could not be taken in such a gruesome way in front of my son and my mom. I made a promise to God and that was that I would ‘pay it forward’ and bless others that crossed my path in life, giving back with love. This is where Resa Kahn-for the love of beauty was born. Paying it forward with Resa Kahn is my gratitude, giving back unconditionally in life.
That Sunday in October 1999 could have been the last day of my life. For being spared, I have lived my life with total gratitude every day since.
I had faced many hurdles at the age of 35. I had lost my father, my husband, my niece and my mother passed away months apart but somehow I kept it all together.
In 2020 I got the covid and ended up in the hospital on oxygen for a week but had a long journey with illness thereafter. Many MRIs, scans, tests, scopes later, I was diagnosed with long covid. I have been fighting off the debilitating symptoms thereof. I have Neuritis throughout my nervous system, myocarditis post covid and chronic duodenitis. I am just grateful to have survived covid, as so many of our loved ones passed away.
My beauties, life doesn’t always deal us the best of cards, but we must keep the faith, stay the course, and always believe in ourselves. Never give up! Fight!
#resakahnfortheloveofbeauty
#payingitforwardwithresakahn
#changingliveswithresakahn
#resakahn
