"To be a mother, to be a wife can only be understood by those of us blessed enough to have lived as both. As you hold your child to your chest for the first time, the fickle heart sets as sure as concrete, and beats with a rhythm as steadfast as the knowledge that now, you will always love, and be loved.
I guess I must sound poetic. But show me a mother that doesn't love her child and I will show you a woman who has lost her soul. Poetry my words may be, but they cannot illustrate the depth of my feeling. There is no literal translation, this is the only truth.
But as poetry so often relishes, the strongest heart can break. Concrete can crumble.
My story. You all know this story by now. If you're reading this, you've lived through it. My words are nothing unusual, nor any more profound than your own. But I write them in the desire that you take solace in the knowledge that I too have seen what you have seen, have cried as you have cried. Have lived in hope as you too live in hope.
My name? Aisha.
Common in modern times I know. But as is always the case, my parents named me with the express intent that it shall remain unusual and original. It seems that even originality is no longer original. In my particular case, I have discovered that my name has crossed cultural lines to become quite common the world over. In a small way, I am connected to hundreds of thousands of people I will never meet. I like to think that my name is an example of the similarities between us all; that at the core, humanity is humanity no matter what cultural divisions are placed upon us. I'd really like to think so, even though at times like these, division is never more obvious. Maybe another Aisha is thinking the same thing thousands of miles away in another country that has different values to ours. Maybe she will one day become a politician and carry this thought with her. Maybe. Hope is a thin thread, but it is a thread stronger than steel when you are left holding little else.
I remember the arrogance of our government before the troubles started. The reports on TV about how we would defend ourselves to the last man. The regurgitation of our powerful history, the same history taught in school by proud teachers to astonished children, mouths agog as we delighted in tales of conquest, empires, kings & queens - the boys dominating the playground with games of war. A fiction of swords, guns and tanks proudly wielded as they fought an enemy that even at this young age took root in their minds. Do you remember those days? The days when we all felt invincible and war was simply a game played by boys with sticks and the wonderful imagination of youth?
And as the televisions blared with the words of yet another government official pompously orating of defence and victory, the boys of our childhood now stood as men. As husbands. As fathers. As an army ready to protect that which they had worked for and loved. It’s hard to call a man foolish when his honour is worn on his sleeve. But foolish is what men are. Boys trapped in a body that belies the true mind. But it is in their nature to defend what is theirs. To stand with other men and protect the freedoms of family, their progeny, their lifelong investments. It’s a trait of men that I can understand, but cannot abide. To fight for peace.
We are a small country aren’t we? And not the economic ‘tour-de-force’ we could have been. Our questionable politics and choice of allies – when I think about it now – made us the choice example for invasion. Our government bullied for too long, and finally, we gave someone the excuse they needed. Nobody will miss this country when it’s finally over, we’ll be an example of history and little more. A warning story for the new world.
The first explosion came at night. A dull boom that shook the house and lit the night sky in a glowing arc. The fires lit the way to my son’s room and I held him, my husband holding me, as we waited for the sirens. I remember reading the childish posters in my son’s wall, reading from the glimmer of burning buildings as we sat clutching each other in silence. Have you noticed that when fear takes hold, you turn to the simplest thing for comfort? A ballistic-lit alphabet was our strength that night.
And so it continued. The world around us slowly turning to ash as the city burned. This new, alien world burned inside me too; scorched a mark as I thought of the days when normality was a pathetic burden. The days when I complained of having to do the washing or pay bills. And it burned brightest when I thought of the days I would take my son to the park and talk with other mothers about the failures of our men as the children played.
Our Men. My man. My husband. A hole that bores through me so deeply that the flames can be seen. It was inevitable really. I knew I would lose him the moment the war started. Not because he was a violent, angry man with war on the tip of his tongue – quite the opposite in fact. His gentle, strong and protective nature defined him. It gave him an integrity that meant he could never surrender, not whilst his family still lived and breathed. He would fight for us, fight for his community; fight with every last thread of his being. And this he did.
As the invasion continued, we became more and more desperate. Food and water became a rich commodity as the occupying forces dug deeper. It didn’t take long until our military fell apart, and surrender came and went without much drama. Nothing changed. We still starved; we still slept in clutched huddles as the shelling continued. But a new resolve had grown in our men. Men who only months before were grocers, bankers, taxi drivers... these men were now fighters. Killers. Forced far from their natural habitat to become the violent defenders of what remained of our country. We are seen as collateral to the occupying armies; as superficial parasites inconveniently buried in their agenda of acquisition. Superficiality illustrated with the stories rape, torture and execution that filtered through during conversations over huddled fires at night, in buildings pock-marked with bullet holes and filled with the stench of smoke.
My husband was lost defending a hospital at the edge of the city with a group of about twenty men armed with weapons collected quietly over many months. A hospital filled with human collateral; filled with mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who had no true part in this war. The missile hit, nobody survived.
‘These things happen’. Then a school is hit. A housing complex is obliterated. ‘These things happen’.
But I have No time to mourn. I have my son. My child. And with this mercy, I am blessed. The changing face of our country plays no part in my undying love for him.
So, I no longer live in a society that I understand, the foreign politics of this new system has torn from me my place within it. But there is no war within my mind. My losses can only be weighed against the loss of others; the mass graves; the bodies of men, women and children on the street. There is no war in my mind because there is no fight. This war is evil. There is no doubt about that.
And as I close this brief note, I shall avoid such clichés as ‘we are one voice’. We are not. We are a discordant song of clashing harmonies, each fighting to be heard above the white noise; each believing that our voice is the sweetest. But until that day when our song will come together to create the most beautiful sound this world has ever heard; take time to think of those in silence.
Aisha."
Note found by Allied Forces next to the bodies of a woman and child in Baghdad, Iraq. 2011.
