She looked at me with gentle twinkling eyes
And a humane smile on her softly etched pink lips
Her salt and pepper hair was neatly tucked in a bun
And I felt I could tell her everything in this jungle of a world
And she would embrace me and comfort me with infinite care
And I ponder: what did I do to deserve this unconditional love?
In that terrifying night of deepening silence her own world had come apart…
Her life partner and soul mate had left her and their precious son and daughter
For the unknown unseen world beyond this life which would never be his choice
The inhuman animals had mercilessly snatched his life and knowingly widowed her
When she was only in her early thirties and living on a bed of roses
Alas! if she had only known then the bitterness of life’s prickly thorns!
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Even after over three and a half decades that haunting scene often comes back
Intermittent flashes of darkness in her inward eye of that unforgettable 1971
The year of Bangladesh’s unforgettable loss of blood and the War of Victory
And also the year of betrayal and terror when life had braked to an abrupt halt
It would always be isolated winters for her for the rest of her barren existence
The icicles in her heart were getting heavier with each passing year…
She had moved to foreign land to raise her two scarred children
She was single handed and life had its vicious cycles of light and shade
But she had strongly held the quivering mast with unfaltering love and care
Immense determination and endless patience never faltered on its track
And on stormy days and nights the light from above touched her soul.
And now her grandchildren gaze at her with endless affection and tenderness…
The wise one who listens carefully to everyone’s stranger than fiction
Life’s complexities, buries her own life’s tale with the new soil of time and tide
Her personal sorrow and tears are effortlessly drowned in the murmuring river
As the days go by and the nights deepen she listens and solves others’ tales
And awaits her divine union with him again but alas! how endless is the wait!
Even the homeward bound birds look at her with moist eyes…
It is only once in a while when the ebony darkness of a Baishakhi night
Envelopes her embittered soul and drooping spirits that she feels listless
And unpredictable tears drown her ravaged being and silent reflections
And then there seeps up an unknown yearning for a never forgotten dear person
In the innermost crevasses of her melancholy heart ever so lonely and fragile
She then searches for her beloved violets and lavenders which are still fresh as yesterday…
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