Death

My name is Dilnawaz.

When my mother passed away, I was just nine, and my younger brother, Hamza, was five. They told us it had to happen this way—that now she feels no pain and is in heaven, watching over us. I tried to believe them, but Hamza only cried and kept asking for her.

Losing a mother so young leaves a wound that never truly heals. You grow up, you live, but something inside you is always missing. It’s as if you’re incomplete—missing an eye, a hand, a piece of your soul. Life continues, and you learn to adapt, but the ache never leaves. That was how we, two orphaned children marked by misfortune, grew up under the care of our father, Rahmatullah. He became our second eye, our missing hand, our everything.

While others spoke fondly of our mother and cried for her, for us, and for the tragedy that befell her, they hardly noticed Rahmatullah. A man of just thirty-eight, suddenly lost and left with two small children, he had only his own existence to console him.

Relatives and friends came by at first, remembering dates and birthdays if they weren’t too busy with their own lives. But while they came and went, our father remained—steadfast, enduring, always there for us.

I remember the day he began packing my mother’s things. He sent us outside to play, trying to shield us from his grief. I shouted nonsense to Hamza, distracting him from the sound of our father’s quiet goodbye to each shirt, each memory.

At times, I thought it was all a dream. I waited to wake up and find everything as it was—our mother in the kitchen, in the garden, in the house. I clung to the routines of life, hoping they’d somehow bring her back. But every day, reality intruded—Hamza’s cries to go to heaven to see her, the ache in my stomach every Mother’s Day, the overwhelming need to call her and hear her voice.

And through it all, Rahmatullah carried his grief in silence. While I yearned for a waking life, he longed for peaceful dreams—a respite from his worries, from the relentless fear that he might falter in raising us or, worse, leave us to face the world alone.

But life offered him little rest. His days were filled with endless work—on the farm, in the kitchen, with laundry, and above all, with the tears and demands of two heartbroken children. Yet, he endured. He gave us strength, even when he had little left to give, and for that, I will forever be grateful.