The thing about children...

The thing about children is that they make you do the impossible when possible seems like a far fetched dream or nightmare.

Like the taut skin of ripe jaamuns after rain which blisters at the slightest pressure-that is the feeling that tightens your heart after you’ve loved children- your own or someone else’s, animal or human.

And once you’ve loved them, that feeling becomes a permanent visitor in your heart-as if something, anything is waiting to happen. And all you can do is pluck lightly as you make your way around life and hold your children, lighter (but tighter) still. Never letting the fruit of your labour and love fall to the ground and bruise.

The thing about children is that despite everything, you try against despair, against fear, against gravity, against life itself and hold them up. You try to prevent the unpreventable, withholding this bitter fruit from their eager clasp- that breathing itself means pain.

The thing about children is that they make you somewhat manic, with hunger for a life better than the one you were born in. They make you want to live, especially when you want to die every second of every day.

You know you could summon the rage and prayers of all your ancestors to forbid a child’s sadness or nightmares. You know you could kill for them. You could wrap your fingers around the heart of anyone who took away the light in a child’s eyes and squeeze so hard your fingers turned blue.

That is also the thing about children- that they bring out the best and worst in you and sometimes it is you who hurts them more than anyone else. That is the cost of loving so closely.

But sigh! The thing about children is the language of music that falls off their lips with dribble.

With my nephew Nuhayd when he was a baby. He is more like me than I am (2018)

“Where do leaves go when they fall Achchci Amma? Do trees feel? Can they hear me?”

My little nephew Nanhu who is not so little anymore asked me from across a phone screen thousands of miles away. His questions still remain the cord between us- uncut, through time and distance.

“When is tomorrow? How long is hamesha (forever in Urdu)? Why does Monday arrive after Sunday?”

My baby sister’s questions make me smile thirty five years after they were asked. She is a mum now and smiles in waiting for similar questions to arrive.

“Why are they burning Daddy, Reema Aunty?”

My god daughter had asked me at her father’s funeral. Her question still haunts me.

“I wuv you Amma.”

My son would close each night with these words for years till we lost them to shadows. We scramble to find them again now, one letter at a time.

You see, the thing about children is their closeness to invisibility. They create words out of thin air and make you believe in things you cannot see, things that can only be felt, much like God. Or like the drop in your stomach when you see a child broken in a country where the sky weeps blood, where prayers go unanswered, where the sun never rises in joy and light.

Even then, even there, people fight to live for their children, they live to save them, if only to wrap them up safely in shrouds. They return them to the earth that was once danced on by little feet. The Mother holds them well in her loamy embrace, only for now, only for this brief night of parting, only for safekeeping.

The thing about children is that if we let them, they can turn the beast in us to something resembling human.

For the children I draw circles of safety each night. For them I cling to my humanity. For them I weep and pray. For them I spin stories, ask riddles and laugh in piggy snorts. For them alone I hope animal dreams of freedom, of green grass and blue skies.

Because the thing about children is that they make you want to believe that tomorrow is another day, and that it will come.

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With my visiting brood, family gathering( July 2024)

I first wrote this essay/poem in response to a prompt on my beloved

Ochre Sky Stories

writing circle. Join them to discover your many voices.

I have loved children (human and animal) all my life and I turn to this piece often when I find this love tested, especially as mother to a teenage boy. I think I enjoy being an aunt more than being a mother. That may have something to do with the fact that I didn’t get much time to enjoy being a child and aunts have more unhuried time than mothers and fathers. If that makes sense.

I hope you like this piece. I hope it reminds you to hold children in whatever way is possible for you. I hope you get to do that often. It is a sure medicine for all maladies.