One Perfect Child

“There is only one perfect child in the world, and every mother has it.”

My baby is the accumulation of everything that is beautiful in this world. He is the sun, the moon, the diamonds in the sky, the chirping birds, the glorious rainbow, the crystal cool water of the lake, the unique beauty of each blooming flower, the smell of musk, the gush of the waterfall, the majesty of the mountains, the depth of the ocean, the speed of the panther, the grace of the gazelle, the shades of the sunset…My baby is the whole world to me, he is my world. Every cell in his body is precious to me. While clipping his nails when I accidentally cut one of his nails a tad bit deep I feel like crying. If it was possible I wouldn’t let him out into the world. I would keep him safe and protected from all vagaries of nature and of life. But that’s not possible.

Pain is not a word that describes a parent’s sorrow at losing a child. Excruciating torture doesn’t describe it either. It is not an emotion, but a state of being. A dead person in a living body. That perhaps describes a person who has lost her or his child. We live in a world where cannibals are on the loose. Cannibals who grotesquely murder children in schools and playgrounds. And we can’t do anything about it. A few vigils and protests and articles here and there. And then a lull, a stunned silence till terror strikes again. We are constantly wrapping our heads, our hearts and souls around these ‘incidents’. We are quoting stats. We are counting dead children like our forefathers counted dead chickens in the coop after a particularly cold night.

To the parents who lost their universe, we cannot offer condolence.  We cannot say sorry, we cannot offer anything. We can say we are sorry for continuing to live our everyday lives and continuing to breathe. For coexisting with the cannibals, the cannibals who ruthlessly decimated our children, our future, our tomorrow, our hope. We can pray, for them, their children but that is also cold comfort. With bated breath we check our news feed, with trembling fingers we flick to the news channels, hands shaking we pick up the newspaper. We just continue to breathe and wait for the next attack. And the next.

(Reference: Lahore Attack)