Tasneem

Her name literally means the milky river in Paradise. I always wondered how someone could be named so aptly. She had creamy white skin and the softest cheeks you ever felt. Her hands were so perfectly rounded at the fingertips they gave the impression that they were made to be looked at and admired and not have to do an ounce of work. When she smiled her eyes twinkled like that of a mischievous child trapped in a toy store. She loved happiness, I mean who doesn't right? But this one, she chased it and tried to capture it between her fingers. But it tended to elude her all her life. She was inherently kind, not just to us saps of human flesh, but to animals. I mean who notices how thirsty the birds are on a scorching summer day when all you want is to lay around in the air conditioned comfort of your house right? Who thinks about the pigeons looking for food each morning? Or how the cat that dirties your building's corridors gets hungry each afternoon. She had a knack of noticing the little things. She would remember to put a note on the refrigerator when she went out to get veggies from the vendor, so that her kids wouldn't wake up and not find her and wonder. She would regularly forget where she put her glasses and forget to wipe them clean, they were grimy, but she would remember to cook her children's favorite meals every day. She remembered to make a note of each and every call her husband got and take down a message in case he got upset and ensured that her daughter's uniform was sparkling white.
Tasneem needed to be loved in return. She had a couple of bratty children, who loved her, but forgot to show her, through their actions, exactly how much. Tasneem needed someone to give her medicine and monitor her health and diet, but she never demanded that her two children do anything for her except be around to give her company. Tasneem needed company but she didn't realize that eventually children grow up and find their own friends and forget the most important person in their lives. Tasneem needed someone who would understand her agony and sympathize with her lot in life but she got a husband that could not come to terms with the fact that he was dealt a hand by fate that he considered unfair to his superior being. And now she has left them. She's gone like the angel that protected and served and then silently slipped away without asking for anything in return. Her children yearn to tell her that she was not weak like everyone had told her all her life, she was a titan, an absolute Mohammad Ali of life. She battled her demons and whacked at the curve balls that life threw at her like a true champion. Her two brats want to let her know that they are proud to have been her children and they are whatever they are because she taught them so well. But that is the true nature of time as we know it, it flows constantly and we cannot have it back no matter how much we want. We can only hope that God has given the soul some provision of having to look at the world as it moves forward as our decaying bodies lies prostate. For if that is the case Tasneem would be smiling down on us even now, like a child trapped in a toy store.