A Year Full Of Losses, If Only Love Prevails over Hate!
It is again 7:46 am Kabul time on June 27. I did try to disappear last year during this month and tried my best to make this month disappear from my life this year as well. But it is impossible; what is real is that this month will come every year, and the morning of June 27 will remain the darkest time of my life, my Natasha.
Another year has passed. It feels like it passed with the blink of an eye, but it also seems like centuries. A lot and everything has changed. This past year was full of life in every meaning of it. Every day I wonder if you were here, how would you have felt or reacted to the new realities. I have talked to you every day this year, but I am lost again today. I feel like the chance to speak to you has been snatched from me. So, I promise, every year this day I will write you, my sista!
I don’t know where to begin, my Nati. The world has changed for the worse in this one year. We have lost the country we called home; we have lost everything. Everyone you know has lost their homes, and all your friends are shattered worldwide and looking for new homes. We have lost our three-color flag. I witnessed a lot and felt a lot. I saw our people crushed to the ground and their dignity compromised because they had wished for a normal life.
Mana (mother), Nazeer (brother), and other family members were beaten and traumatized by the Taliban while trying to leave the country. We nearly lost Baba at the airport due to freezing nights. Most of our people who have fled Afghanistan have been living in refugee camps with uncertainty with no agency for their future.
Your friends are alive, but everyone is in different parts of the world. They have been checking on me from time to time. They all miss you dearly, but they don’t deserve what they are going through, as you didn’t deserve to lose your life.
Mana is also okay; she is a strong woman, but every Saturday is a dark day for her, and I try to avoid her on Saturdays because I can’t see her desperate eyes for answers. She asks why she is not gone instead of you. I am too weak to put myself there and take the load of her sorrow. But do not worry, she will be fine.
Did you say how am I doing? I feel guilty, homeless, hopeless, and unsure where I should begin life from scratch. I thought 2020 would be the most brutal year of my life, but this last year was not easier either. I felt every kind of feeling, starting with the survival guilt for being alive, safe, and free when the women of our country are imprisoned by a terrorist group, and the world handed them to the Taliban. I felt betrayed and desperate because you were killed for nothing. Before, I would console myself that for the freedom of women, education, and progress, there would be sacrifices, but you died for nothing. Afghanistan went back to where it was 20 years ago. I wished we had not returned to the country, so you would have been alive.
I also felt helpless most days because I saw how all Afghans, including our own family, were treated around the world in refugee camps. Most of them lived in limbo, not knowing what would happen to them. They lost their country, their homes, countless families drawn in the ocean, and thousands of children separated from their families, but everyone treated them as if they were the luckiest people, so Afghans should be thankful. They spent and are still spending months in those camps, not knowing what will happen to them, their children are out of school, and their careers have gone. I hear from time to time from some sympathizers that you Afghans are so strong and resilient. I want to scream that there is no strength in losing everything; there is no resilience in waking up every day and hoping you will have a life. Afghans do not have a choice; they do not choose to be strong and resilient; they just want to live a normal peaceful life.
Most days, I was angry and wanted to fight everyone that every human should have agency over their present and future and why we Afghans must always be at the mercy of others and grateful for living in uncertainty almost for a year in refugee camps. My Nati, I saw families being separated; I received hundreds of calls from people asking if only I could at least save one of their family members. I felt them all, but I also failed them as I failed you.
Whenever I would hear a female voice on my phone, I would imagine you in your PJs sitting on your bed in our Kabul home, telling me what should I do here, Lima. I am locked at home; please help me get out of here. All those women who were able to leave, I felt a part of you got free with them and left Afghanistan, and all those that I could not help, the darkness inside me would arise telling me you failed her again, Lima.
I feel it is all my fault. I don’t know how it is my fault. Therefore, I could not stop all these months. Each time a woman would get to a safer place, I would say if I help one more, I will feel better. But I never felt better because how could I save more than 15 million women, and all those women have family members. How can we separate women of Afghanistan from their families? How can we separate the women of Afghanistan from Afghanistan? It is all wrong, but I kept looking for a clue of salvation, but there is no salvation with what we do.
In the most challenging moments, I wished you were here with me, but then I would wonder how would you feel if you were alive through all of it. Would you believe that women are no anymore considered equal human beings in our country? They are not allowed to go outside the house, not allowed to work or get an education. They are denied all colors of life, pushed towards darkness to live through. I will be honest, at times, I feel relieved that you are not seeing all these because even now that I am writing to you, I can’t believe it is happening in our country, and it is happening for the second time only in my lifetime.
My Nati, I also lost someone besides you last year. Nati, I was pregnant with a baby girl. Sometimes it would comfort me that I might find your essence in her. But I guess she did not want to be born. She felt this unfair world is not a safe place to be a woman. She did not want to go through all of this. So I lost her, and this loss taught me that if I can’t save the woman inside me, I am constantly trying to help protect all women of Afghanistan nonstop. It taught me how small I was against the evil powers all around.
My Nati, our world has become even messier than before. There are new wars, killings worldwide, racism, and women suppression. I have not met anyone from Afghanistan that has not lost in many ways. In Taxes in a school shooting, 21 children and teachers lost their lives. The brother of a girl who was killed that day wrote, “ I hope you didn’t feel any pain. I hope you know how loved you are; I’m so sorry I forgot to say good morning today. I love you always and forever, my baby sister.” It hurt so much Nati, I know there are so many like me in the world that are hurting for their loved ones, but I hope you and all beautiful humans killed are in peace. I hope you are not sad anymore.
My Nati, I still get up every day with the hope that there might be something I could do better than yesterday. Most days, I don’t have a clue, but I have hope. I laugh out loud whenever there is a chance, and I also do not hold back on my tears whenever they want to flow. I wake up every day hoping that the world will be a better place someday. There will be a day that people will not lose their loved ones to terrorist attacks, wars, and gun violence. There will be a day where every day in every part of the world, women will not be shouting and fighting to have rights to their bodies. My Nati, I hope someday love will prevail, and there will be peace!
I love you always and forever!
If love can only prevail over hate!
Until I see you again, my sister!
I will only love, fall in love, and give love!