Noha

Very little memories you retain as parents when you are growing up with a child but since yesterday it seems I can’t help getting into cycles of maintaining books of all that I had experienced as a mom in past 3 years. You know the most vivid memory I have is of the wrist pain I constantly complained of when she was about a few months till she was old enough to crawl and all. It hurt, it hurt enough to dig a space in my forgetful long-term memory I can still feel the pain and I look at her and the pain gets justified somehow despite being strong enough to remain in my bodies memory. We’ve been listening to titanic from past few days and just last night while we were busy mourning trying very hard to not pass on our misery to her we heard her sing along “once more you open the door” all tuned up all the right words and just then we had an unsaid eye-contact conversation saying so many things to each other “wow, is she really singing all of this” (while she is still matching tunes in the background, she doesn’t know the words anymore she’s just humming), “don’t say anything she will be distracted and become conscious” “God Dammit shes singing titanic!” and then another wave of black suddenly overtook it all ….

I am not reaching out to anyone today I am too stricken to think to talk to complain to show anger most of all I can’t find enough strength to be even angry I am just in that zone where I start grappling with what I saw on tv for seconds coz somehow I can tolerate it for more than that making all these sounds as if the anchor is crying shit man! I am just sitting here and my heart freezes every 10 minutes with one and only one thought “she goes to school too you know” it just stops functioning, my brain gets blank I don’t feel anymore I remain in it not being able think about anything while involuntarily rubbing where my wrist use to hurt. And then I get a grip wipe of my tears stand up and try to do something productive only to feel the same shiver after a bit of time.

I can’t reach out to anybody, I cant tell anyone that I feel their pain because you see I am a mom and I just don’t have the capacity to imagine anything like this how the hell do I know what you are going through where mere imagination glimpse of what it may look like has been shattering me since I heard the news. I beg for forgiveness for not being able to reach out but I am sorry I cant! You see I cant even dare to put her name here! I cant even dare to write what her relationship with me is I cant even jinx it there so I wont empathize and know I will have stop judging all who are using whatever means they have to reach out, to express , to condemn, to show the other side, to remind us of the children of thar, or of those who get killed every day on streets of Karachi, or the boy who was killed in Faisalabad, you see I agree that we go through tragedies every day and we are used to counting how many dead now but I am sorry I cant be that parson right now coz you see she goes to school too and this mantra that I am begging my head to stop repeating is not letting me compare this to anything its made me dysfunctional, I cant be resilient , or dheet or dead or numb right now coz all I want is to shut the world curl up and remain motionless.