“Sometimes in life everything seems so wrong. The smile on people’s faces, the hope reflecting from their existence, the belief in their eyes for a better tomorrow; you just want to rip all that apart because on one end you think of yourself as the only one with the deepest sorrows, your nerves prick, your blood creeps, your eyes rain, your body pains, your presence stained, memories thrashing your hopes and happiness; the world seems the darkest adobe, a place from which you want to run away. Fall flat and just die because you are sick of standing up to the world, sick of making yourself believe that life is amazing and so are you. You aren’t even sure if death would ever bring peace but all you want to do is to run away from your torturing present and your ruthless past. You want to trust people but you can’t. How can you when everything seems so wrong, your presence, so unwanted? Being vulnerable is what you fear. Loving and losing was never a sentiment you manifested. Spreading the halo of happiness, so easy it seemed, so difficult life made it.
When all this comes along, life becomes the most unwanted song, then somewhere you realize that you can’t run away because you feel like you have strings attached to your existence; you aren’t tied with mere ropes that can be burnt to let you go, set you free. With passing time, your soul has been connected to some and when you have one soul in two bodies it is never easy, not at all simple to fall flat and give up. Even when you don’t want to smile, to live life to the lees, to enjoy the good that life offers despite it being all hazy, you still do only to make that one person, that certain unbreakable part of yourself happy.
Fantasizing, all this might sound. One soul, two bodies. What a fairy tale it seems when it so is not. Even when life turns into the most intricate maze, there are some people out there who not only want you but they need you because mere wants, I believe, change with time, place, situations and attitudes but a need is something which always stays because it is like your oxygen, something which has to illuminate the world, your world, even when all fades away, even when you see no hope, no good, no bright shades, no happy days or joyful nights.
True love, this all is to me. When you are ready to give up on all but this one person, one relation, one smiling face holds you back; stops you and makes you realize through every passing moment that there is somebody who gives completion to your soul, the reason of your presence, the source of the random smiles and plans through the sad flight of life.
Reading this, I know, there would be moments when you would be smiling, remembering the intensity of the bond we share, crying at others, thinking that I am not there by your side anymore even when you exactly know how your sad tears make me feel, wanting to kill me while reading about my disappointment towards life. Physically, I am not present there but I still know you, know you enough to marvel at the thought of the smile which just crossed your face. Ah! you can’t even start to imagine how the smile always lit up my world. I know I have not been the best man on this earth, not the best husband either. I have never been expressive about my feelings towards you; throughout life, there were various times when I wanted to look into your lively eyes and say those three words that defined me. I wonder why saying those three words was always such a difficult task, in turn making me wonder how you would have hated me at all those times when you wanted to hear them, wanted my love for you to be expressed the same way you always expressed yours. However, now I think it is time for me to break that barrier that I have been holding to the rush of emotions, time to tell you that Hania Hammad, I love you, love you more than words could express and actions could speak. I love you for the happy tears flowing down your beautiful hazel eyes at this moment, love you for the smile on your face, for the way you argued with me when I thought of myself as a mess who was unable to do anything, for the way you made me forget all my sorrows when I looked into those eyes, when I saw that big picture frame of our wedding day in the living room; Hania Hammad, I love you for one and for all. I always thought it would be the most difficult task to tell somebody this one thing you are about to read but it became so very easy when you came along. You are the best that has ever happened to me”
Tears gushed through my eyes as I read his last letter, the letter that he had dispatched just days before his death, the letter which had played my entire life as a film in front of my eyes. I have always loved him and I will always love him but reading this has intensified my emotions. Never had I ever thought that I would lose him, not that I have now because he lives inside me. I am more him than I am myself but not having his bodily presence along my side, the thought of never waking up to his whispers, never worrying about him makes this all so very challenging. It feels like I am dying every minute and living every other minute. I still remember how when I had decided that I would marry him, my mom had said:
“Hania, marrying an army official is like putting your entire life on stake. You never know, one shot and your entire world will blow.”
However I could see or hear nothing at that time because I love him and honestly, I don’t even regret even a single second of it because he was all I wanted, all I needed and all that held the power to change my frown to a smile in a matter of a few seconds.
Hearing from him has brought back to me that unforgettable look that he held on his face the day he came to know that he had been posted to the Siachen border and had to report in a week. That look of giving and being happy about it ruled by the fear of losing, that look of ultimate satisfaction coming along with a feeling of an uncertain future made me so worried. I remember how just before he had left, he mumbled those last words while holding my hands, those words that made it all seem so easy, those words that had made me smile despite the intensity of the situation.
“Hania, when I lost my parents to the drone attacks, you can’t even imagine how helpless I felt, when I lost our son to the target killing right in front of my eyes, that trauma was unbelievably long but there was one person who made me stand up and for this one person, I will fight every problem that life offers, to come to her. I promise”
He did come back because he was a man of words but not on his two feet like the way he left. While serving in the Gyari sector, he became a victim to the avalanche, became a victim of 7th April 2012. That one day which brought with itself a blow so great that it shattered me inside out, broke all my hope, all my strength, leaving me like a soulless body.
How helpless I feel after thinking about how he would never enter this big house that we built with love and care on his two feet, never smile while looking at me thinking I am not noticing. I can’t even give that feeling words. Now that he is not there by my side but watching over me, this world is not my destiny anymore because it has nothing left except for his memories that are helping me to endure this life even when I don’t want to, helping me to smile even when my face hurts, helping me to look up to the day, I would meet him once more and stay with him forever.
