Don't Remind Me

Chapter 39: The Wounded

"How's Fahad?" I croaked hoarsely to Nurse Margaret, who was busy changing my bandages.

"He is perfectly fine. Just a minor burn to his left eyebrow. He'll live." She replied, her eyes focused on her task.

"Can I go home now?" I whimpered when a stray cotton thread rubbed against the tender skin. 

"For the sake of your sanity, I really hope that you're joking Ms. Hayat." Nurse leveled a quelling gaze at me, over the surgical mask tied over her mouth. She was wearing sterile scrubs from head to toe. "You have third-degree burns all over your shoulder, and second-degree burns down your arms. For the next four-five days, you're not even allowed out of the sterile room, let alone out of the hospital. Your damaged skin makes you extremely vulnerable to bacterial infections. Just sit back, and relax. You're safe here."

I would laugh out loud, if I wasn't in excruciating pain. 

And most of it wasn't even physical pain. 

When I started Hiraeth, I wasn't looking to collect awards, and recognition, and the public's admiration for my philanthropy. I just knew that a lot of women would die if I didn't reach out my hand in support. It was always about fighting my own demons through this. It was always about vanquishing someone else's oppressor, because I never got the chance to vanquish my own. It was this drive to save as many as possible. 

But when I met those first 10 women; everything changed. 

I was no longer obsessed with avenging my past, and exorcising my old demons. My history with sexual abuse almost ceased to matter, because it seemed almost trivial when I came to know some of genuine horror stories these women had gone through. 

28-year-old Farwa was an honor-killing survivor from a village near Peshawar, she was hiding from her family after they killed her husband, and threatened to kill her too. Her crime: marrying someone out of her tribe. 

Sheherezade was barely 16 when she refused a marriage proposal from her neighbor, and he decided to ruin her for any other man who might want to marry her. She lost vision in one eye, and looked almost sub-human with the acid burns covering her otherwise perfect face. 

Ghosia's husband was an abusive alcoholic, prone to senseless violence. At 23, she became a cripple when he got home too late one day, and didn't find a hot meal waiting for him. He beat her until she broke her spine, and still didn't stop.  

After she gave birth to a baby girl, Raeesa's mother-in-law used to encourage her husband to divorce her as punishment. As if she was the one responsible for her baby's gender, she was treated like a slave at home, until one day her patience snapped. When her mother-in-law tried beating her up, she beat her right back. Afterwards, terrified for the safety of herself and her baby, she escaped the hellhole that was her life, and ended up at hiraeth. 

There are more stories, each of them worse than the one before. 

I remember when I first met these women through Ms. Delores, all those years ago. They looked beaten, bruised, and broken on the outside, but I could sense a spark within them. This tiny ember of life. Like the glowing flickers that burn brightly in a barbecue, just before the coal cools down, and to keep that fire alive, you have to protect those sparks. 

And just like that, I fell in love with them. These women had experienced various degrees of hell on earth, and they had survived it somehow. They still had those sparks inside them, just waiting to be fanned, protected, encouraged...

And that's when it all changed. Everything became about them, about pleasing Allah through helping His creation. And I never looked backwards. I was at peace, when I most needed it. I was heartbroken, lost, confused, and very angry 6 years ago. Hiraeth changed me. Made me into the self-assured woman I am today; one who knows that what she does for a living, is making a difference in the world. I felt a little bit closer to my Allah, every time I saw one of these girls heal back, and smile. I will never ever forget how He made this project easy for me. Every time I thought, 'This is it. There's no way I can raise enough money', or 'There's no way I can give this enough time.'  something would happen to make my job easier for me.