Difficult Year, Lost Dreams

Hello, my darling sister. How are you doing? I’m okay, but it feels heavy today, as you may guess why. It is again June 27, and it is again 7:47 am. I try a lot to feel different on this day, but it is dark. It is full of regrets, unfulfilled wishes, and unbelievable loss. How are you, Natasha?

I will tell you about my past year.

So much has happened this past year, and yet it feels like nothing has changed. My memory is fading, and I’m forgetting things, but what hurts the most is the feeling that you’re forgetting me. It feels like you don’t visit me anymore, not even in my dreams.

This past year has been one of the most difficult years of my life. I felt lost and overwhelmed. I’m not saying I’m okay now, but I think I’ve come to terms with the feeling. I’ve experienced a loss of self-esteem and felt like I was fading away. I also struggle to find a purpose to hold on to. Losing our country and home will be a lingering feeling for a long time.

There were disappointments, but also moments of real happiness. I’ve watched Hasti grow — she was so tiny when she arrived early, and I’ve cherished every moment with her. I’ve seen her smile for the first time, take her first bite of solid food, start crawling, and take her first steps. It’s been a different experience, watching life slow down and feeling everything with her. She is a very curious girl, watching everything in detail. She loves people but also demands her own space. She is so talkative. She loves Baba and his room. I have wondered every moment of the last year, if you were here, how your relationship with her would be.

Over the past year, I’ve lost the ability to dream and to look forward to the future. I’ve been living a routine life, doing things for Hasti and the family that I was expected to do, and then waiting for the day to end, only to start again the next morning. I don’t know how to activate the part of my brain that dreams of a better, fulfilling future. There were moments when I felt completely forgotten, not knowing by whom. I still feel like you’ve forgotten me because you don’t check on me. But I make eye contact with you every morning when I wake up. Please, don’t forget me.

Mana and Baba are okay. Baba got his hip surgery done, and he’s doing very well. He walks one to two hours daily and says he feels younger than he has in the last 40 years. Mana is becoming more hyper and anxious. She ensures everything is in place, from the fridge being stocked to Baba’s medicines being refilled. It feels like if we don’t do things on time when she asks us, something bad will happen. She’s talking to a therapist, and it’s helping her. She’s also happy with Noah and Hasti, spending more time with Hasti to help me finish my PhD. She calls Hasti Natasha most of the time, but of course, she is scared to love her a lot, because I think she is scared to be hurt.

I’ve been gardening for the past two years. I don’t know if I told you last year, but this year I think I’m becoming more of an expert. Despite the harsh sunshine and heavy rain killing my flowers, I’ve still grown plenty of tomatoes and some other veggies. And yes, I had really good strawberries this year.

I was going through our texts last night and saw how much I used to complain to you about my weight. I wonder what you would say now if you saw me, as I’m even fatter than before. I still struggle with losing weight and complain about it just as much.

I feel that a big part of my life, the part that was supposed to be fun, happy, and fulfilling, is gone with you. I feel deprived of the life I was supposed to live with you by my side. I don’t know how to even tell you what’s going on in our world and our country, especially with women. It’s more horrible and devastating than when you were here. There are more wars and more killings of innocent people. I feel so helpless, I can’t do much about it. Although I did walk of one conference where the Israeli Ambassador was speaking. I just can’t bring myself to face the fact that someday I will be telling Hasti that her age young children were being massacred and the whole world watched, and we did nothing, we all are so cowards.

This year, like the previous two years, I have been busy with calls and messages from women in our country asking for help. They want to leave, and each time they ask, I feel like you’re asking me. I feel like I’m failing them because I failed you. After all, I failed myself. This desperate feeling of trying to undo things and not failing is not letting me go.

Where are you, Natasha? Do you hear me when I call for you? This past year, I worked on a paper regarding child brides in Afghanistan. It broke me to my core. I think with everything I do, a tiny part of me transforms with that. I learned about our grandma from Baba. She was a lot like us, or probably a lot like you. She loved her friend so much that when her friend died, she took her name to keep her memory alive. Working on that paper made me feel that our country is suffering because women are suffering. Our broken hearts have cursed our country. The cycle of violence and trauma has been in our DNA for so long. Until we heal our women, there will be no peace. We must cure our broken hearts to bring our broken country together.

This past year, many of your friends graduated and some got married. Each time I saw them in their beautiful dresses, I wondered if you would have enjoyed those moments too. I wish you could have experienced these milestones. I smile thinking about how you would have danced at their weddings and gossiped with me about it all night. I wonder if you would be in a relationship by now or what you would think about getting married.

Everyone else in the family is doing well. Nazeer has a daughter now. Can you believe it? Her name is Erum, a name you loved. He never talks about you, and he avoids the topic, but naming his daughter Erum felt like his way of coping. I can now talk to Naqeeb openly about you, and he has your painting and photos in his house. He’s not running away anymore from the fact that you are our beautiful sister taken away so brutally. Yes, talking about you hurts, but you are us. Asya is struggling with motherhood, but she’s a good mother to Noah. She’s hyper in everything she does, but she’s taking good care of Noah. I hope you will tell her to take care of herself as well, and please tell her to learn to drive, she is not listening to us. Sadiqque is good too; he visited us twice this year. I think he’s doing fine. Payaam is not talking to us as usual, but we’re giving him his space. But do you know Ershad graduated from high school? Yes, I am not kidding, the kid is grown up.

Omaid is also fine. I think he is struggling with the fact that he can’t go back to Afghanistan. He tries a lot to put on a happy face, but I know deep down he is not happy. This year, he is also making eye contact with me when I talk about you. This month, one night he came and told me that he really misses you and he has not dealt with the fact that you are no more. He has yet to cry, but I think he is coming around. We both are trying to make peace with the fact that our lives have changed and we won’t be able to go to Afghanistan anytime soon, nor can we hold on to the impossible dreams we feel we failed to achieve.

I’m going to finish my PhD this year. I finished 140 hours of interviews. I celebrated that by dancing with Dunia and Zarifa until 3 am. I missed you. I really missed dancing with you. It was the first time I danced like the old days, danced as if no one was watching, and it felt good. Anyway, the topic of my PhD is full of life’s miseries, traumas, and happy experiences of my participants. Although it is so enriching to be able to know all their stories, I also feel I am living in their stories for so long, and I have felt everything they have shared with me. I can’t wait to share their stories with the world. I want your support and your belief in me that I can finish it.

I miss you, my sister. Please tell me how you are doing?

Love always,
Your sister