A mother's monologue

The son left behind two little daughters and a wife of tender age, his house and his business, everything in the possession of his in-laws. Now everybody was busy sorting out what was there, but the man, whose blood and sweat put all of these together, was lost in that scavenger hunt. But how could a mother forget her son, the grief of that loss sticking to her heart like a fresh stain of blood!

That loss aches in her womb which conceived him, in the breasts which suckled him, and in the arms which rocked him. She regularly marked his forehead with collyrium when he was a child, to protect him from the evil eyes of the world. But she did not realize that life itself had cast its evil eye on him and that there was no protection against a man whose destiny had already marked him for death. She does not sleep well at night; cough and sorrow wreck her chest like a raging storm while rest of the world wallows in deep slumber.

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Her two granddaughters are now in the middle of a custody battle, their maternal grandfather hoping to keep them with him so that he could keep their father's house. Her daughter-in-law is too young, and her father is already looking for a suitable boy to give her hands. The youth of a girl is the heaviest burden to weigh on a father's shoulder.

It is even a heavier burden on a mother's heart to live in the memory of her son who died so young. He was tall and handsome, his limbs as if cut out of blocks of rock. Who could tell that death was lurking in that body, like an enemy waiting to strike? When she sits in her bed listening to the yelps of foxes rending the darkness of night, when the drone of crickets fill the air, and the frogs croak on rainy nights, she thinks about his son laid in the field next to the village mosque where bamboo fences girded his grave as if guarding some fragile plant.

Her son has left behind a burden of debt because he had borrowed money for his treatment and his employees skimmed the cash in his absence. His father is worried to death, looking for ways to repay the debt, the old man spending his days going in circles in the courtyard like an animal tethered to the stake. Her son's father-in-law wants that she and her husband should write their share of the house in the name of their two granddaughters so that he would be able to put it on rent for an income to raise them.

She wept that this cruel world was more interested in the finances of his son than in the fact that he was gone. His wife is going to remarry and should a son be born in that wedlock, her two-anna share in the house could go to him. She never understood the complex calculation of inheritance, how the existence of a deceased person is reduced into fractions of numbers, split amongst his dearest ones like a dismantled puzzle. Every time the wind blows, it rustles in the leaves as if the desolate soul of her luckless son hovers in the air, and whispers to his mother from another life. A mother's grief is like a ruffled sea, the trickling tears rolling down her cheeks showing only the tranquil surface which hides the agitation under it.

She misses her granddaughters and wishes she could keep them to her, holding them in her bosom as if to keep warm in the heat radiated from an extinguished hearth. Her son will not come back to her, like fleeting time, which, once gone, never returns. But his daughters will grow in the image of their father, his flesh quivering in their flesh, his blood running in their veins. Perhaps they will show some of his mannerisms, carry some of his features, the smirk, the dimple on the left cheek and the walk with jolts.

When the dogs bark in the lazy afternoon, which spread out under the scorching sun like a fallen drunk, when the fireflies glow at night like flying sparks, and when the cry of thirsty rails come from the far-off marshes early in the morning after they have their first drink of water, her heart wrenches in the agonies of everything lost. Where do children come from and where do they go, coming to mother's womb like travelers checking into temporary lodge? These selfish creatures feed their tired bodies on her flesh and blood, and drink the milk from her breast until they are fully rested and ready to move again! Who are these children but the debris of ecstasy that a man shares with a woman which nature collects in a mother's womb?

Why does it hurt when children die, when the debris returns to debris, the dust to dust? Life goes through the passions of love and lust, men and women in their inebriated moments forgetting that pain is always the residue of pleasure. It hurts her every time she thinks of her son, how it was a pleasure to raise an object of pain for thirty-four years! It was painful to carry this son in her womb for nine months, give birth to him, raise him through sickness and want.

It was painful to watch when he struggled to make his grades at school and set up his business after much hard work. Again it was painful to realize that the clod of flesh, which came out of her body, had grown up to become a man and was ready to repeat his own cycle of pleasure and pain. But he was not expected to die so young like a plant that dies after bearing fruit but for once. His two daughters are going to grow up without their father like seeds sprinkled in the wilderness. Who is going to look after them if their mother gets married again?

May be she should ask her husband to give up the house, and bring the children home instead. What is the comfort in the bricks and mortars, if one's own blood and flesh must trudge along the road? She saw them in her dream last night, looking like orphans they were running on the street in tattered clothes, their faces looking pale and tired. She thought she ought to cry for a while, discharging the vapor of grief that was going to suffocate her.

Out on the courtyard, a mother hen was parading her chicks like a drill sergeant proud of his troop. She watched them with glazed eyes, the miracle of life that was unfolding in front of her as these chattering creatures motioned around each other. A happy family together now, but soon they will go under the farmer's knife one by one.

The farmer raises these chickens for the same reason death raises life. Life is nothing but a harvest of death. Her son is gone, now she must wait for her turn. Only regret is that fate broke the sequence and took him before her, because it makes a mother's life more painful than death.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.