Story — A Woman Who Lost Her Daughters

She was lucky like you. Her husband was a handsome, wealthy man who took good care of her. Her children were the joy of her life. Like a bird, that does not know whose bullet killed her, one day she fell down from the skies into the mud and she lost everything.

Her life changed direction. She realized that nobody was there to help her and she had to make difficult choices to care for her children. For some people life becomes very difficult. But the lucky person can think about every step clearly and go on.

We come in the world just once, we live once and we die once. Why shouldn’t we live our life in a good way? Why shouldn’t we live our life with all the happiness that we can? We can make it happy, we can make it sad, we can make it wonderful.

When I met this woman I was an aid worker in Afghanistan. I knew she had many problems. But I could see that she had already survived the worst. She was strong and self-confident. This made me feel good about her case because I could feel that she would try to find a solution to her problems in any way.

It was hard for her to ask for help. But I didn’t give up. After one month of trying to talk with her she started talking to me.

She asked me, “Why you looking for me? Did I do something wrong? Did I make any problems for you?” I said, “ Oh, my dear, no. You did not make any problems for me. You are so kind. I just want to talk with you. I want to know why you are always so sad. Maybe there is some way that I can help you.”

She relaxed and said, “Thank you for this kindness, I am happy that you want to help me.”

When she said like I felt very good, because I was not sure how she would react to my help. It was a good start.

I tried to continue, to make her feel comfortable.

Again I saw her after a month. She came to me, hugged me and started to cry.

When I asked her why she said, “Don’t ask me now, I don’t feel good. Just let me feel comfort.”

I said, “Whenever you feel good, tell me, I am here to listen to you.”

I made time to meet her outside of the office because I wanted her to feel comfortable.

Then she started talking. She cried as she told me, “I am not good. I am an unlucky mother. I always lose things. I never can be a good mother for my children.”

I asked her, “Why do you believe you can’t be a good mother? I see that you are. You can not blame yourself. It is not your fault, it is the fate of life. Sometimes we can not do anything, it is out of our hands, even when we try our best.”

I could see that she did not feel good. She had many things that she wanted to share, but she didn’t know who she could tell.

I asked her, “Can you tell me what happened to you? Why do you feel so bad? Why all the time are your eyes full of tears and we see all your sadness in your eyes?”

She starts to tell me, but says, “You are the only one that I want to tell.”

I told her that she could trust me. I would not tell anyone. But I would try to find ways to help her with her problems. She needed someone to trust. But not a man. She wanted to talk to a woman. Someone she could trust. Someone that would not cheat or lie to her.

Then she started to tell me her story.

“I had a very happy life in Iran. A beautiful family and beautiful children. I was very rich because I had a complete family, full of happiness. My husband loved me, he loved his children and he was a kind father. He was the best father in the world. Whenever he came from work he didn’t just sleep, he stayed with the children and played with them. He took them to the park, to the cinema, anywhere they wanted to go. And he was looking out for me, he cared about how I felt, if I was happy.”

I asked her if she worked. She replied, “At first I had a job but when I had my children there was no one to take care of them so I stayed at home. But our financial situation was good. It was good for all of us.”

I asked her what type of work her husband did.

She said, “He had his own business. He was very good at his work. He had lots of people who loved him and respected him. We were very happy because everything had turned out like we had planned for our life.”

I was confused, “So what happened, that now you are here in Afghanistan and he is not here?”

She continued, “After my last child was born our financial situation was slowly going down. My husband had some problems with his business. Day by day he was getting really bad, because he couldn’t find a way to solve the problems. The hardest thing that we faced was that the problem was something about his closet friend. His friend was the only man that he shared everything with, and knew everything. And he was making problems. His friend knew about all the money that we had at work and how much we were using at home.”

I could feel that this was not good. I asked, “What did the friend do to you?”

“He died…my husband died.” She cried.

Just then he phone started ringing and I could see she was very afraid.

I asked, “Why don’t you pick up the phone and see who it is?”

She said, “Whenever my phone rings I am very afraid that my child is not safe. Now it is my daughter. I have to talk with her, excuse me.”

As she talked on the phone suddenly she made a loud noise and said, “Stay there, I am coming, don’t move.”

I asked her, “What happened? Why are you crying? Is everything ok?”

“Please, can you take me to my home? Don’t ask me now. I am not well.” She pleaded.

“Let’s go, don’t worry everything will be ok.” I tried to reassure her.

“I have lost my daughter, she is not at home. How can everything be ok?” She replied.

“She is not there and no one knows where is she, I have to find her.”

Quickly I went with her to find her daughter. It was very difficult because we didn’t know where to look. And the other children were upset and crying. We started to ask the neighbors but no one had seen her. We went to the police station to inform them.

I stayed with them all night. The woman didn’t sleep. She was crying and shouting. Making noises, calling her daughter’s name.

She cried, “Where are you, my dear daughter? I lost your sister. I am not strong enough. I cannot be without you. All of you are my life, my everything. Please God, find her for me.”

It was very difficult. I was caring for the other children in case she wanted to be alone. But the children were crying when they saw their mother crying.

When they slept I went out to see the mother. She was so weak. I was shocked. I tried to wake her up but she woke up she began repeating her daughter’s name and crying.”

We spent the night like this. In the morning we went to the police station. They also couldn’t find her.

She went on like this for a month. But she could not find her daughter. I was in contact with her whenever she wanted to talk with someone.

During this month when I met her she was trying to tell me about her past life. I could tell that she felt better after talking. But she was only talking to me, nobody else.

I wanted to ask a question, but I did not want to hurt her. Finally I asked, “Can you tell me how your husband died? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want me to.”

“He died in a car accident and we lost him. But it was not an accident. I thought it was. But now I know that there were people who were jealous of him. It was not an accident.” She cried.

I knew this was very hard. In Iran without a man, a woman is nothing. She was alone with five children.

Then she told me how she came here.

“When my husband died I was very alone. I didn’t feel good. I was worried about my children. They were crying for their Dad and asking me, Where is my Dad? Why is he not coming?”

She continued, “I tried to go to my husband’s sister’s house because I couldn’t stay at my home. When my husband died the people from his work came to my home and told me I couldn’t live there anymore. I had to leave. I had no place to go. The only person that came to my mind was his sister. But she would not accept us. His sister said, I don’t want your dirty children in my home. Go anywhere you want, but never come here again. We don’t want you or your children.”

I asked her, “Where did you go that night, where did you stay?”

She said, “On that night we couldn’t find any place. We stayed outside in a park near her house until the morning. In the morning I went back to her house and tried to talk to her again.” But she told me again, “Just go, I don’t want to see you anymore around here. We don’t want you, go, just go!”

I took the children and called a friend of my husband. I will never forgot his kindness. Without any questions he came to pick us up and took us to his home. He was very upset. He was asking my why my husband’s sister was treating me like this. But I had no answer, I did not know.

I told him, “I don’t know where to go. I have no choice. I must leave Iran and go back to my country, back to Afghanistan.” I asked him to help me. And he did. His wife too.

But it was not an easy journey. Along the way, the woman lost one of her daughters. Maybe she was lost in the crowd, maybe she was taken. She was only 8 years old, in a place she did not know. The woman tried to find her, she asked the police to help, but they did not care about one lost little girl.

The woman decided that they needed to move on. She needed to be strong for her other 4 children. They needed her. They had to get to Afghanistan, to her mother’s home.

But one month after she arrived to the safety of her mother’s home, her mother died. Her father had died a long time ago. She was alone again. The woman wanted to stay there, because she had 4 small children. But her brother told her she no rights to live there, she had to leave.

She was crying and telling him, “I have only you. Where can I go? Please, don’t do this to me. I need to stay here.”

But he did not listen to her. He put her out. Her and her children.

She was crying. She didn’t know where to go, where to sleep. She had no money to rent a house.

When she left she was not given any money. Her husband’s friend had stolen the money from the business. He told her that her husband had lost all his money gambling and there was nothing left. She knew this was a lie. But she did not fight with him, because she did not want him to cause trouble for her children. So she had nothing from her husband.

She went to the RED CROSS to ask them for a place to stay. They gave her a house for a month.

During this month she found work cleaning other people’s houses, washing dishes in a restaurant, cleaning offices, sewing. Anything she could find.

After one month the agency told her that now she had to find another place to live. They could not help her anymore. Because long ago she had fled Afghanistan. She no longer has the same rights as other Afghan people.

She went to one of the houses that she cleaned and asked the family if she could stay for at least one night.

The owner gave her a room to stay, in exchange for the cleaning. The family helped her. She put her children in school. One year passed, day by day.

Then tragedy struck again. Another one of her daughters was lost, one day she didn’t come home. This is the phone call she received when I was with her.

She was overwhelmed with grief. She blamed the family that had helped her.

They were sad and asked, “How can you blame us? We also can not find her.”

Sadly, sometimes in Afghanistan, girls do not come home.

Now the woman had 3 children left. She found a new place to live. She found work sewing clothes. But day by day she became more tired and more weak.

Every day she was crying because of her 2 daughters that were lost.

One day someone came to her and wanted her daughter for their son. She cried and said, “My daughter is small. They were raised in a bad situation, I want a good life for her.”

But the daughter said, “Mom, I can’t live like this anymore. I want to live like other people. I want to have everything that I want. I am sorry mom, I want to get married.”

The woman had nothing to tell her daughter. She was very angry at herself and blamed herself that she could not give them a better life. Even though she did not agree, she accepted it and her daughter got married. She was 14 years old.

Her daughter moved to a new place with her husband, and fortunately she had a good life and enough money.

But her mother was not happy. All day she was crying. With all this crying she lost her sight. She was blind, and only 2 of her children were still with her.

When she lost her eyes these two children tried to work and study. Her son made food and sold it on the street because none of the shops would accept him.

When he was selling he hid because he didn’t want his friends to see him and make fun of him.

And his sister was also working, cleaning houses.

They both tried to make money so they could send their mother to the doctor.

One of their neighbors was a doctor and he tried to help them. They took their mother to the hospital and after one week she recovered.

She could see again. She started working, making clothes for people. And their economic situation got better.

Years later, her daughter became a doctor, and her son became an engineer. But she never found her two lost daughters.