Final Chapter: The Flame of Life

Continued....

I gradually opened my eyes…. feeling relieved to be able to see again, a little blur but at least I could still see. I looked around …. observing my surroundings but all I could actually see was pitch dark.

“How strange…  I was so sure that I hadn’t turned blind, yet it felt that I had forever been sightless.”

 It took a few hours that felt like forever till I could see again. But what was there to see? Nothing I hadn’t seen before…. I was used to these purple bruises encircling my eyes and painting my body now and then. I imagined these bruises as beauty marks, pretty shades of cosmetics that covered my ugly, worthless, and pitiable body.

I remember the night I stepped into my second home, leaving behind my family and what little I had. It was the first time in my young life that I had seen my present and future even darker than a night. The moon and the stars had vanished from my life; it seemed they had faded away within a murky void…. an emptiness that was destined to be my shadow for all eternity.

I often run through my memories, replaying the day of my marriage in mind again and again… thinking how my own blood, my sister could seal my fate with fire knowing that I would burn in its eternal flame.

My second family had nothing to offer, they had lied to my sister about their financial status. Although we didn’t have much too but at least we had a roof to sleep under and food to eat even if it wasn’t proper.

My husband didn’t have anything nor did he try to earn with a promising job or work his way up. This was the future that I had foreseen the very first night, a life full of poverty and never ending hardships.

The problem was that I was on such journey that had no turning away from, a path that was destined to be one way. I accepted my sealed fate and my second home/family with their poverty, lies and the eternal fire surrounding me.

However, my path was still full of thorns… my husband was not only poor in status but manners and character as well.

Such was the irony of my fate, the very hands that held me tightly pulling me to this strange place I soon started to call my own, were what was pushing me away.

I was beaten up almost every other day by my husband and his brother, for reasons I could never imagine. I was often accused of being a little too free while talking to strangers… smiling at other men or when there was no sound reason behind the battering.. they’d remind me that I came empty handed… just to be a burden on them.

My body was more or less used to the scars of pain just like my soul. But the only difference was that my flesh and bones healed with time, but my soul… could never heal. I was reminded every second of the day that my parents were shameless people who had married their good for nothing daughter without paying the price of her burden.  

Hearing my mother –in-laws taunts as they echoed in my ears, I often wondered how was I a burden to them… how???

Things seemed the same as before… they rarely ate and slept under the open sky. I did the same and that too without any complains. In fact I worked at home and earned a living too to support my in laws. But still I was a burden?

However, these thoughts never came out as words, for I knew that I had no one and nothing to return to. My family was never there to ask about my problems or even my well being. So I bore all this pain, regret and humiliation for my children and the man I loved (my husband).

Years passed by and then one day.. for the very first time my mother in law treated me with love and care. It was the happiest day of my life, for a few minutes I thought my prayers had been answered but little did I know.

My sister-in-law had reached the age of marriage and since she was engaged to my brother, my in laws wanted me to talk to my family so as not to make any demands of dowry (Jahaiz). I laughed to myself as her words hit me like lightening, for she was asking me to do something about the very same reason I was often beaten up for.

I talked to my family and resolved the issue thinking it might change something in my life but it didn’t. However, my brother being the part of my family did become a beacon of hope for me. I was relieved.

When we were young, all of us (the siblings) were quite close to one another; our bond was like that of life and death… day and night… inseparable. My brother’s wedding was like a breeze of joy in my life. I was happy in his happiness.

But soon these clouds of happiness turned grey and shadowed our lives.

After some difficult and poor nine months of marriage, my brother finally gave up on the life he had lived up till now. He had decided to change his fate, promising his wife to rewrite their destiny.

My brother had discussed his issues with a friend in Lahore who happened to be a police officer. His friend had given him the idea of investing in a scheme that would make him rich with just a little amount of investment.

My brother, with hopes a little too high left the village with what little jewelry and money he borrowed from our family. He took away all the gold his bride had been gifted too. He was aware of the risks but he still gambled on his life.

That was the last of him; we never saw or heard from him again. My brother’s loss was like a flame, consuming us all, but his absence for my in laws was more like setting a dying flame ablaze again and again.

My brother’s choices were added to the list of taunts and thrashings inflicted upon me.

You would think how much pain have I endured? Reading my story surely does make you sad and at a point makes you think that at least this is the worst… right?

No it wasn’t …. I wish it was, but maybe I was destined to bear every sort of pain. Years passed as we searched and awaited my brother’s return. But we were out of luck.

It seemed our lives stood still, we were stuck at a point but time was moving ahead. My relationship with my husband and in laws had worsened over the years, so the only source of my comfort was my children who I adored.

I bore 5 beautiful children, three sons and two daughters. But still I was the same good for nothing daughter of my shameless father and sister of my brother who had run away with all that our families had.

To escape these taunts, I went back to what I once loved… the fields, cattle grazing and being in the open… feeling free.

My employers were kind people who helped me through thick and thin. Since I loved animals, they gifted me a calf, a gift that later became a blessing for me.

When times were too rough, we sold the gifted calf that had grown up to be a healthy cow. Just like the old days my husband decided to just sit on the money, do nothing and let it all go to waste. But I for once in my life, stood up, took a good beating but invested that money to purchase a piece of small land in the outskirts of Lahore city.

Finally, after years and years of a continuous struggle for survival, my husband decided for us to shift to the city. We moved to the piece of land my hard work had earned. Although the city was even more ruthless than the village life, we kept our heads up and started finding work.

I often look back at life; think about all the early days I thought were the worst. I wish I’d known it before that the time I had lived at my parent’s house was the best time of my life.

I am sure you must be bored reading my story, ahh how I wish my story was as blissful for you like my home had been for me.

We built our house, brick by brick ourselves…. all of us worked hard to earn a living. Time had certainly changed, in my own family/house, we had little to eat sometimes nothing to eat but we did have something called ‘peace’. I was never harsh with my children and raised them well but their father, never changed.

 It was as if the shadow of my destiny had clouded over my children now, breaking them into tiny pieces so they can never fix themselves.

As a mother, I felt hopeless and just saw another home crumbling upon us.

My eldest son gave up on us too soon and ran away. So this time I took a good beating for more than an hour because another reason had been added to my list.

I remained silent…. But my son’s actions and decisions reminded me of my brother. I feared that I would lose yet another beloved at the hands of fate.

I have suffered a lot as a wife and endured even greater pain and hurt as a mother throughout my life, yet I have kept moving ahead with hope.

Soon my second son was sent to Islamabad to work, his tiny hands picked up whatever little work they could at the age of 10. I would see him after months and at times after a year and whenever he’d come home I used to kiss his tiny hands that had hardened and roughened from washing 10 cars on a daily basis. My heart sank with the thoughts that he was just a little servant with a little too much work.  

It is unbearable for a mother to see her child suffer, but I was bearing the pain of having sent away two of my children. My heart was now weak and old…. All this felt a little too much to swallow.

But time healed all this pain… and with the little joys of our lives, it seemed that the suffering was all worth it. Now my children had grown up and my daughters were about to be married.

However, I never imagined that soon I would suffer the loss of another child, an irreparable loss of my younger daughter.

She worked as a domestic helper at a house. My daughter was a beautiful soul, who always loved and cared for everyone. It was her last day at work, just a month away from her marriage when she lost her life in a tragic accident.

“What more can I do but wonder… what has been my life but humiliation, pain, misfortune, deceit, suffering and loss.” 

 After the loss of my daughter, I lost my sisters one by one, who were consumed with the grief of our long lost brother. They all went blind shedding tears for one pain or another troubling their already grieving hearts.

Ahhh… life is what it is…… I was still mourning the loss of my sisters when my husband bid farewell to the world. He left me in this hellish world, alone to suffer.

For you… my life must seem like it passed away quickly, but for me time has been the heaviest burden I had to carry all along. From that leaking roof till now my life has been stuck in between these phases of life that grew darker and deeper as every year passed. 

Now I await nothing but death as my blessing in disguise, a gateway to my imaginary world that will heal my burnt flesh and broken soul.

“In the end my friends, I have learnt a great deal from this life…. I have come to realize that in this wretched world no one is your companion but life. A companion that may either be healed with and by time or set ablaze in its eternal flame of life.”

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