The pale moon hiding behind the morning fog with its chilly air moved something about her. Despite trying for hours she couldn’t sleep that morning. Images kept haunting her; it had been 43 years and somewhere she was still unable to forget his face, the last time she saw him before the soil of this nation embraced his body forever.
Had she ever imagined that she would be left to cry over the glowing yet quiet face of her son before he got a chance to cry over hers?
She had lost a son to a nation only to protect many others and still somewhere something died about her each time she thought of that day. He was a martyr and martyrs leave mothers proud despite the pain which their separation brings to the wounded soul. The same soul that walks all night only to put a little child to sleep, the same soul that breaks a little inside every time she sees a scar over his body.
She choked over her thoughts as she heard the news flash on the television.
Victim’s father, he quoted:
“When your child dies, you bury him in your heart. He only truly dies the day you die.”
She had lost a son as well, a son 24 years of age fighting to save his country from paralysis, she had lost a son 43 years back and today, more than any other day, she felt like she had lost a son again. Such was the pain, such was the heartbreaking sensation the darkness of that one attack on a school brought. The news channels kept reporting:
Blood stained bodies.
Ruthless rascals burning a teacher alive.
Death toll increases to 130+.
She was living her last and yet wondering what had really changed between December 16th 1971 and December 16th 2014.
The political parties were arguing back then, blaming each other, creating sympathy votes out of blood stricken bodies and heartbroken mothers.What had really changed?The children were suffering back then and they are suffering now because they have us as their elders; people lost between the desires of power and fame.
The smallest coffins are actually the heaviest; raised after 20 years of struggle, you lose them in 20 seconds to humanity crises?
Somewhere she couldn’t get past the painful pinching truth that somebody out there was congratulating each other with a “Good Job.”The suffering was endless. The torment overpowering as tears rolled down her cheeks for the last time in those 43 years; her gaze went still and her body cold. Silence prevailed as news kept flashing.
Writer’s note: Some words unsaid are some sentiments unexpressed and some bottles uncapped. This story might just be a fiction but sometimes realities are too harsh to be bound in words solely by themselves. Here’s to every mother, every father, every sister, every brother and every infant out there mourning today at the loss that we’ve incurred, here’s to the tears shedding from those eyes who had glistened in the morning while sending their children to school, here’s to each of us waking up to a hopeful sunrise without ever imagining the hopelessness the sunset brought.
