Battlefield.

Your pyjamas are soaked in tears. They’re not your size anymore. You’re growing away from me. I ask kids how old they are; to imagine how big you’ve become. They answer it like any other boring question silly grownups ask, not knowing how much it means to me.

Long days & nights have turned into months. Months are turning into a year/years. Only He Knows when I’ll see you next.

You see I failed. Failed to fight our fight. I wasn’t raised a warrior, I’m just a mama duck. I can swim and walk on land, but not fight them wolves & mice. My quacks were never loud, nor was my pace quick enough.

They tell me get louder, fight harder, not knowing I can’t do it further. I had my share of noise; my heart can’t take this fracture.

I CAN NOT do any more, I lost in the battlefield. I wasn’t born to slaughter, nor did I learn how to make a shield.

I ask Him for you all the time,

While driving, stopping & following lines,

While walking between the isles,

I’m the crazy talking to herself mom.

Will the cutest duckling find her way home,

To her broken wounded mama, alone?

You & I are never alone,

He’s alway Got our backs & Hears our moans.

May your Eid be filled with joy & love,

No balloons without you, nothing yummy on our stove.

I remember him...

I remember getting excited for joining this place, everyone seemed so professional and a lot of people I knew would’ve loved to work there..

I met a lot of people, and never thought that looks would be so deluding.. I thought women with proper hijab would always be upright & those who wear inappropriate clothes wouldn’t be all that..

I was wrong.. Besides, these were my first encounters in the ‘real world’..

This is the story of so many women out there... A story of a colleague, who became a friend.. Who made me wonder about right and wrong and if there’s an ‘in between’...

First time I met her, she had a lot of make up on.. A LOT! At first I didn’t know why, but eventually I did! She’d sometimes spend the whole day in office with her sunglasses on; said her eyes were  too sensitive.. Any guesses?

That’s right, she was abused.. By her husband.. I was young, and this was my first real life encounter with evil.. I didn’t understand.. Three kids, says he loves her, and she loves him and that he’ll change! ‘This will pass’ she always said.. She always thought.. She always hoped..

She’d cover up her bruises in all sorts of ways.. Cry in the washroom all the time.. I thought I’d never see this stuff in real life, but I did.. I couldn’t stand it.. I never did and never could understand it..

Humiliate yourself and let your three kids grow up seeing you get beaten up almost everyday; because maybe someday it’ll get better? Because he’s rich and pays for their ‘great schools’? Because you love him? And he loves you?

What kind of love is that? He sees other women, but says he marries them? Doesn’t do haram? Goes to umrah every couple of months?

I never understood! Really!

Years passed, distances came in between us and we talked every now and then.. Everytime we talked she’d tell me he’s not changing, but that he will.. That she believes deep down he loves her and will come back to his ‘senses’ someday.. And that gave her comfort..

Police was involved.. a couple of times.. Divorce too.. A couple of times.. And she stayed.. For the ‘sake of the kids’ she said..

I tried convincing her to leave.. I had her sleep over at our place.. She’d always run back to him.. She told me that a scholar told her to stay and try! 

Years passed.. And about a year ago, she texted me: “I left him!”.. After her kids went to college.. After them seeing it all.. Living it all.. After wasting so many years.. So many tears.. So many fears..

She barely had a chance to have a life.. Or grant her kids the life they needed..

Was she abused? Or did she let her self get abused? I’m not saying it’s easy to leave.. But.. You gotta do what you gotta do.. Don’t let your life slip away from you.. Don’t let the walls be your limit.. Don’t leave the windows closed and the pain eat your soul up.. Don’t live dead.. It’s only one life that we get over here..

...

He was scary, crazy, and I don’t like remembering him..

May God Help hear heal.. May He Help them all heal... amen!