I am a daughter of Kashmir. I envelop the essence of my motherland within me. The sweet smell of my country is in my wide dark colored skirts, my thick, rolled headscarves, my earthen pots, and my narrow mud cabin. Its pain is evident in the rigid lines around my eyes and mouth, and in my long, rough gray hair. I see its loss in my somber eyes and my callus hands. And I see its hope, dying slowly in the little garden that I planted in my small verandah this summer, which is failing day by day, giving up on life, as the first cold winds come, the early messengers of the first heavy blanket of snow.

I see him now, my boy, a man in the eyes of the world, sleeping peacefully as the sky slowly turns into a deep hazy blue, and I sit looking at him with an odd, childish longing in my heart to hide him somewhere, where no one would ever find him. “Payaam Ullah,” I call softly, as I ruffle his curly hair. “It’s almost time,” I whisper again softly, and he opens his deep green eyes and stares at me as if he has forgotten who I am. He was always a serious child. He used to hide his face in my skirts and whimper softly if he had seen more than his little heart could take. And he used to smile when I told him stories of far away lands, of freedom, of his father.

Payaam’s father died when he was still nestled safely in my womb, shielded from the horror that has befallen this beautiful homeland of mine. Azad was killed in a demonstration with several other young men who were demanding to be freed, to have the right to live in their homeland as free individuals. Azad died seeking freedom, and countless followed. His own son will fight today. He will go into the street and demonstrate with others of his generation, holding banners that demand the nemesis military forces of India and Pakistan to let us live…in peace.

Peace is our ideal. Sometimes, when the wind swishes the leaves of the trees and blows through my weak, thinning hair, I feel almost free, almost at peace, and invariably a gunshot or a scream breaks my reverie. I named my son Payaam Ullah, “A message from God,” and to me he was that and more. He was my freedom in his own way. When he used to smile at me, my heart used to fill with an indescribable feeling of joy and turned into satisfaction and pride as he grew up. And whenever I looked at him and felt the undefeatable love of a mother in my heart, I used to think maybe that’s how freedom feels, maybe that’s the affect peace has on you, because loving my son was the most satisfying feeling I had ever felt.

Now he is getting ready to leave, follow in his father’s footsteps, play his part in this fight for freedom that was started in 1947 when the subcontinent first split. It was a little over a week when he first told me that he was going into the streets to protest with a large group of his fellow students. It was really nothing more than a moment of dejavu for me.

I saw Azad in my mind’s eye, coming to me on that fine sunny morning twenty years ago, and telling me as calmly as he could that he was leaving and he may not come back alive. In my desperation I couldn’t think straight. “What about your child?” I asked hurriedly, in a panic, tears beginning to gather in my young eyes. “There is God,” he replied solemnly.

I wanted to ask him “What about me? What about us?” But I knew he would have the same answer. And I knew he had to do this. Someone had to do this. That night he held my hand under the stars and sang a soft song to me, and then he said: “I will always be with you. But I have a responsibility towards my homeland. I want freedom for its people, freedom for my child, freedom for you. I want my child to be born into a different Kashmir; a free Kashmir. I have to play my part.”

I understood his cause. It was my cause too. I did not wail or cry when he didn’t come home the next night. I did not scream when I found out that there was no body to bury. They were all taken away by one army or the other. I never found out which one. It has been twenty years and I still see him in my dreams, and to this day my tears are caged behind my eyes.

My boy is leaving today to do his part, to fight his war, to demand his rights. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. Maybe he wants to follow his father because he has idolized him. Or maybe he just feels the same sense of responsibility I feel towards Kashmir. I would have gone too, twenty years ago, and fought and died. But I had another responsibility. I had my son. I had to love him, raise him, and make him the man he has become today. In some ways I’m proud of him and the way I have brought him up. He is a man of principles, just as his father was.??

I kiss his forehead now and he kisses my hands. There are no tears in this goodbye, only smiles. The tears can wait till solitude takes its full effect. I dare not mention death. I am telling myself that my Payaam will come home tonight, knock softly on the door and call out “Maa” in his distinguished manner. I just wish someone would reassure me. I wish Payaam would reassure me and say “Maa, see you at seven,” as he always does. But this time there are no reassurances. There are only whispered affections, heartfelt prayers, and the slow, painful end of a beautiful dream.

My son is my world, my only prized possession. He’s my little boy, the reason for my happiness. He has left the haven of my home, the love of his mother, the small pleasures of a family. He left this almost free home to find liberty, to seek freedom. I have lost my man; he sacrificed his life for the freedom of our people. My boy is fighting a life threatening fight to free this nation. So many mothers like me feel like their hearts just got ripped out of their bodies. I don’t know how I’m breathing with full knowledge that my boy may be shot by one of the hostile military forces today just because he has the heart to hold a hand painted banner demanding a free country.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to live after today. But I do know that I have lost a husband and my only son is about to step into a world where his mother’s arms cannot protect him. I will him go, and I will not mourn. If I could have another chance to change their decisions, to stop them, to plead, beg, order, do anything in my power to make them stay, I will not do it. I am a daughter of Kashmir, and I will let my husband die and my son leave all over again, if I only knew that their efforts, their blood, their lives have not been in vain; if only my sacrifices could bring for my people, what they desire most: freedom.