For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

had met with an accident. My memories of a horned cow created
specific unease. Anything could happen in a country where cows were
allowed to roam free. I was in a dilemma, not knowing whether to
stay with Papa, or leave him to hunt for Mother.
    Then Nadia burst through the door saying,
‘Mother has been taken ill. She has severe abdominal pain. She is
undergoing tests.’
    Doctors gave various reasons for Mother’s
discomfort, but none were thought to be serious. I spent weeks
running from one hospital bed to the other, until finally both my
parents were discharged. Papa recovered rapidly, but Mother grew
more pale and ill with each passing day.
    As 1981 ended, after seeing several
specialists, we received the most dreadful news. Mother was
diagnosed with stomach cancer. The cancer had spread. Her condition
was terminal. For months she remained in the hospital, but once the
hospital had done their best, we took Mother home where I could
nurse her. I bathed her. I fed her. I massaged her. I loved her.
But despite my care, her condition deteriorated at an alarming
speed. She whimpered in pain until the doctor started her on
morphine and taught me to give her injections every four hours.
    During the spring of 1982, my darling mother
became emaciated, with sunken eyes. I would carry her withered
frame from room to room in my arms. One night she made a desperate
plea. ‘Daughter, if you truly love me, then help me to die.’
    That bitter night I was tortured by nervous
doubt. I awoke early on 11 June 1982, not knowing whether I could
go through with it. That morning she stared into my eyes without
speaking. Her heart spoke to mine, reminding me of her final
request. The hardest moment of my life came when I gave my mother
her next injection. I consciously increased the dosage.
    Looking intently at me, she gave a satisfied
nod. My face would be the last image of her life on earth. She was
my mother and she had loved me for my whole life. And I loved her
enough to fulfill the most difficult request anyone can ask.
    I held her tiny wasted body. We locked eyes
for a final moment.
    Then, just like that, my mother was gone
forever.
     

Chapter
XII
    On 30 October 1982, approximately four months
after my mother’s death, Papa and I took the heady leap from India
to America, the land of my childhood dreams. Although we had longed
to return to a peaceful Afghanistan, that dream was impossible. We
would have been arrested and executed had we returned to our home
in Kabul.
    Safely in America, we would have been in
bliss but for the troubling situation in Afghanistan. The Muslim
Mujahedin insurgency remained locked in a hellish military
stalemate against the Soviet troops. After four years of Russian
military presence, our country had become a satellite of Moscow:
the Communists still ruled our cities while guerrillas controlled
the countryside.
    When we first arrived, we were met at the
airport in Washington DC by Mother’s sister Auntie Shagul, her son
Nasir, his wife Khatol and another cousin, Razia. Auntie Shagul
strongly resembled my beautiful mother in physical appearance and
in conduct, so when she smothered my forehead with kisses, her love
and warmth consoled me.
    Many of Mother’s Hassen family members had
made the journey to America before us. Due to their unique
diplomatic contacts, they had avoided the dismal life familiar to
many Afghan refugees, who, having been accustomed to their own
homes, were suddenly thrust into a tent city to live in idleness,
poverty, bad health and misery. Shagul had setttled in Northern
Virginia. A few relatives on my father’s side had also put down
roots in the vicinity.
    I was in a hypnotic trance for the first few
months, finding my feet in such a safe and comfortable new
environment. I was eager to experience everything of the country I
had come to know through films and popular music, but I soon
discovered it was a land of confusing contradictions. The Americans
of my dreams were rich and carefree, living in beautiful mansions,
eating the finest foods, in loving relationships, spending their
evenings dancing to disco tunes.
    But the country and the people were more
complicated than that. Very few Americans were wealthy enough to
have no worries. Most people I saw lived modestly, or were
downright poor, and many were hard-working immigrants who had
little time for dancing. That was my first shock.
    A second shock came after observing how
American parents and children related to