
Ma!
It’s 16 December. The day you saw my blood stained dead body. The day you died along with me. It’s our first death anniversary Ma.
I can see your red swollen eyes today, you didn’t sleep Ma, I know it. I can see your hands tremble while you make tea for Baba. I can hear that painful unspoken conversation between you and Baba. When you look at each other and say nothing, your silence tells me all. The wails of your heart and the cries of Baba’s eyes, they pierce my heart. It’s been a whole year since that happened, but you still live in the moment I died. The days after that, they didn’t pass for you.
I know you can see the wound of bullet on my head bleeding again today. The very place where you used to kiss me before sending me off to school. My white shirt which you used to wash with such pure love, It’s blood stained forever in your heart. You clean my books, my toys, my chair where I’d sit to eat and my plate everyday, with your scarf. Today when you clean, I know you can hear these weep with you.
Remember Ma, the day when they entered our school with big guns and started shooting at the children. There were cries everywhere. I was scared. I called your name. You were not there. You were running in the street towards my school without shoes.
My friends with whom I’d play everyday, they were crying and falling down while bullets hit them. I saw a pile of small bodies on the ground beside me Ma. I was standing in a pool of blood when a bullet hit my arm Ma, It was so painful. I fell on the ground. Your little kid Ma, your baby. I remember how you wept when I once had my arm broken while playing. I had a bullet in it now, I knew you’d come to save me.
They fired up my teacher who tried to save us, she burned to death alive and we saw it. It was all so scary. I wanted to hug you and hide in your shawl. I called you Ma. I tried getting up and run to you but I couldn’t. One of them saw me. He came towards me and put his gun on my forehead. It hurt so much Ma, so much. I looked him in the eyes. I wasn’t afraid of him, he was a coward. I did called you and baba for the last time before he fired the bullet.
I saw you from up there, when between blood stained books and misplaced shoes you searched for me. When in the hospital Baba showed you my little cold body. When you touched my face, brushed my hair and fell down. Hysterical, crying, unconscious. The eyes that you saw shining in the morning, they were dark. The tongue you heard speaking, singing poems while having breakfast, it was silent forever. I felt your pain Ma. I felt the pain of 132 Mothers that day.
Please don’t cry Ma. Do you know, with every tear that sheds from your eyes, a beautiful flower blossoms here in our garden. Oh did I forget to tell you? We are here Ma in this magical garden with green grass and so many beautiful flowers. They smell of you Ma. We play here and laugh. We have Allah here with us, who love us like you do. He takes care of us and He tells us that you and Baba will be here one day and then we’ll live together in peace. No bad people can enter here with their guns.
I want you to be strong Ma. We’ll meet one day. You can kiss me on the forehead then and wrap me up inside you.
Till then, With Love.
Your Brave Son.

