The pain of others

 Credit to Patricia Polacco via Ken Jackson (facebook)

 

I had only one pregnancy, with only a slight complication. My daughter had her first child a little more than five months ago, with a complication more unsettling than mine. But in the end, we have been fortunate enough to have healthy babies who joined our lives filling them with precious love. Pregnancies of only internal interferences. Utterly welcomed ensuing births. And we both are a child of a parent or parents, defined by their irreplaceable love for us and for each of our children.

Then there was the very young Farzana Parveen, who was carrying a child as well – out of love by choice, the connector that matters most between human beings and has been time-tested again and again in different forms and extents. She, too, was the child of parents, assuming to have been brought to life also out of love. Yet, not at all as fortunate to be loved by them without condition. For her choice in marriage to and her pregnancy with Mohammad Iqbal, she was murdered by the same hands that must have at least once held her with love. And her senseless, brutal death, was – as claimed in the news – for the sake of the family’s honor.

The world-wide dilemma regarding this distorted sense of honor is not anything I want to dwell on today. I am merely trying to raise one question: What we, as co-humanity-occupants, can do in the face of such tragedies. Blame the involved society? I have. Get angry? I have. Feel sad? I have. Write about it, one pen at a time in order to raise awareness and accordingly, to inspire the will in others to react; spread the word; organize in the model of countless international organizations that exist for this or that cause; lobby to contribute to the formation of a world-wide regulation to hold accountable any society that excuses its barbarisms under the disguise of  “traditions”; …; …?

I know this issue is not solvable as easily as I have just made it sound like. Still, the idealist in me is convinced there is something to be done beyond keeping silence over such gruesome affairs destroying human lives. Even if it means to merely share a post, a link, a commentary, or a poem on electronic platform – our century’s seemingly most effective venue to reach masses across the world, I will continue to do so. I want to hope you will agree with my conviction: each of us possesses the power to mediate anything good that happens around us. To materialize such influence against the anti-thesis of good can be no exception.

 

honoring a mother-to-be,

another “honor” killings prey

 

in the hope-filled dreams for our children

we were once one – we had always been

living the privilege of a fertile womb

for eons in its rightful haven

with promise to a love-offspring

you are no longer

i met you again in your tragedy

the butchery of your blossoming life

and the one inside you to care for and adore

the internal pump on my left thus burnt at its core

the same times though in a different place

may have left intact your youthful grace

i mourn your brutally wasted self

for i wish to have been a kin to you

long lost, from afar

one who arrived in time to keep  your final breath ajar

(Draft, 5.31.2014)

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As always, I wish you a beautiful Sunday – however you may define beauty for your lives, and look very much forward to your next visit.