A Glimpse of Jeremiah's Jerusalem

I never forgot my first glimpse of Kabul during the time of the Taliban. It was after the Mujahadeen war of the 90’s. The Mujahadeen warlords behaved in typical Afghan fashion – each positioning on a hilltop overlooking the King’s Palace and Karte Se. Forming alliances with one warlord, treachery, betrayal, backstabbing each other, and the end result is that none took control, the King’s Palace, Queen’s Palace, and most of Karte Se were destroyed. Not a single house went without some mark of the war – whether bullet marks, rockets dropping through roofs, fire, bombs. Only one house went without a mark of war – the Christian Community Church of Kabul, known as the CCCK by foreigners and Afghans alike. 

My DH and I arrived in Kabul in early September with our young baby.  I had my colleagues send me an outfit, so that when I arrived Kabul, I had properly veiled as we walked through the empty and dark Kabul airport.  Because I was clearly a nursing mother, the guards merely waived us through security – they were happy to have any foreigners coming to their country. 

We were told our apartment wasn’t quite ready, so we would be taken to another office to wait, have lunch and go there in the afternoon. I didn’t want to complain, since we were brand new.  Frustratingly, I could feel a mild case of fever and flu-like symptoms coming on, and the baby and I were weary of all the change. We just wanted to get to our apartment and begin settling in. 

Finally, it was time to pile back in the car with all our luggage, and drive across the empty city. I will never forget what I saw as we slowly drove into Karte Se – the speed necessitated by numerous potholes.  It was when we got to Demezong, the chowk where the post office was and turned onto Durulamen Road that runs all the way to the King’s palace, that my eyes widened into shock:  I had traveled in over 55 countries of the world before I married DH, but NOTHING prepared me for what I saw. 

Immediately,  the vision of Jerusalem when it was sacked by the Babylonians, as described by Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations came to mind.  His words accurately described Kabul at the time of the Taliban rule.  My heart broke as I later read his words: 

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.  Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. 

The roads to [Kabul] mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly. Her foes have become the head; her enemis prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe. ….The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength.

For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate for the enemy has prevailed….Her gates have sunk into the groun; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord. 

The elders […] on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads, and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground…infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, ‘Where is the bread and wine?’ as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.”

I now knew just a bit more what he saw, and the pain he must have felt to see his own people destroyed because of their obstinance.  War is a terrible thing, sometimes necessitated as an instrument of God’s judgment, sometimes just purely evil. But oh, how the mothers, babies, children, young men, young women, old men, old women suffer. Rule under the Taliban, under Shariah law, is hell on earth. If one’s Utopia is a place ruled by fear, hatred, coldness, and poverty, than Shariah Law is the way to obtain it. 

We arrived at what was to be our home for the next 6 months or so. The first floor was completely sandbagged on the outside, but we were led to the upstairs. Our first security briefing in-country was to be told to run downstairs if we heard shelling, and we were taught how to use the VHF radios (okay, DH already knew everything about how to use them, but I needed the orientation).  Security call was nightly, to make sure everyone was in long before the Taliban-imposed curfew. 

This was the beginning of learning how to live in a city just a short ways from the front-line of a terrible war.

No Time To Grieve

I made my sister promise to call me the minute Mom passed away. She had been sick with cancer since right before 9/11, and I had been in Afghanistan since 2000.  It was agony not being there with her at her bedside as she took her final breaths.

The call came around 9pm in April, 2006. My husband was already asleep, needing to get up at 4am for an early flight. Aid work in Afghanistan never stops.  I had no one to talk to, so I woke up my 6 year old son and told him that Grandma had died. I felt a little human comfort as I hugged him and sent him back to sleep.

The next morning, while my dad and siblings were beginning to plan mom's funeral, we started three days of intense training with Security Consultant trainers, learning how to survive being taken hostage, kidnapped, or detained by foreign governments. They started out the training by singing worship songs. I couldn't worship - the first song was Blessed Be the Name of the Lord, the chorus of which includes, "He gives and takes away...."

I walked out for a few minutes because I could not get control of my sobbing. But no time to grieve - I needed to get back in there and learn how to survive, because little did I know how bad it was going to get in Afghanistan once the Taliban started targeting aid workers. I had to stay strong - as the wife of the leader, everyone was watching me.

Five years passed. I never had time to grieve. Dear Husband was busy being the Country Director of a very large, international, mult-million dollar aid operation, and we had a large team of expats to care for.  The first year Dear Husband was in this job, I got horribly sick -twice - in bed with influenza and literally could not move.

Because I never ever got sick like that, it was a major signal to me that I had to cut back on most outside-the-home activities, anything which would drain me, so that I would have the margin of energy to serve my family, deal with the abrasive culture, and be able to have some left over for emergencies and for me. We still had one baby in diapers, and I had to focus on homeschooling.  No time to grieve...it would just take too much energy, and I didn't have any to spare.

Attacks on aid workers increased 300% in 2008. Friends kidnapped, murdered by Taliban, held hostage. Expatriates going into crisis. Pressures at work. Husband experiencing major physical symptoms of stress, including constant headaches. No time to grieve - I needed to stay strong for the children, my husband, the community.

I was later diagnosed with Panic Attacks, and knew I was on the edge of depression again. Looking back, I can see I had panic attacks for at least the last two years I lived in Afghanistan, which I mostly managed by controlled breathing.

We arrived home late in 2009, and went through extensive debriefing.  However, we were blindsided by an unexpected and major transition and it took a couple of years to work through the ramifications and loss of relationships. No emotional and mental space to grieve, and very few people to talk with about the reality of what we were living through.

The grief has been "oozing out" occasionally during the years, sometimes at inopportune moments, but I learned to control it with systematic breathing and mental distraction. 

Finally, late 2011: time to grieve my mother's death.

I have space, a little time, and the quiet to write. I am not near depression, and I am not experiencing emotional, spiritual, mental upheaval. We don't have a major speaking engagement coming up, no trips to prepare for next week, children away at sleep-overs, dear husband  gone for a week so I have my bed to myself to read, write, and sob.

I've re-read my mom's e-mails to me, and experienced the warmth of her love, re-read her version of her marriage, history, and just enjoyed re-experiencing my e-mail conversations with her during the seven years before her death. I find myself sobbing late at night, letting myself grieve and experience the pain of loss in the depths of my heart.

I do have two more tasks to do before we move permanently to Turkey - I have to go visit her grave site. I haven't been able to emotionally have the energy to go and grieve there privately.

I also have to re-watch her funeral, possibly with my children, who were really too young to understand much. I've only watched it once, but had too many people about the house in Kabul to allow me the privacy to watch it and cry.

I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded of a letter I had written to her from an airport in the U.S. on my way back to Afghanistan. I remember feeling like it was one of my last times to express all the love, appreciation, and admiration I had for her as my mom, not knowing when she'd die. I remember sobbing uncontrollably literally the whole time we were waiting to board the airplane as I wrote the letter - it tore me up inside to be leaving her once again.

Here's one of the most meaningful things she wrote in response to that last handwritten letter to her:

_________________________________________________________________
Dear [Anna],

I've reread your letter to me you wrote at the [USA] airport.  It still makes me cry. 
I want you to know how very proud of you I am, and that the life that you are living has been my dream since I was young.  Little would I have guessed that while I was not permitted to do the kind of thing you are doing, my dear daughter would be called to do so.
While I know that security is not a feeling, and I know that you will be wise in everything you do, I still have the natural concerns for your  (all of your) safety.  I know that you are as safe as you can be in His will and that He is ultimately in charge.  Of course, that is the greatest comfort in being so far away from you.

How I long to come to you and to help you set up your house, do the things that a Grandma would do.  I pray I will be able to in a few months.  In the meantime, please know how very much my spirit is with you, loving you, your husband and children, and sharing the excitement of reaching your goal.
I love you so much it hurts.

Mom

____________________________________________________________________

While I did send a video of myself giving a tribute to her which I Fedexed from Kabul and was played at her funeral, here is the short tribute I wrote after she died:

[My Mother's Name]

As Mom herself predicted, she would not make it to her 66th birthday (April 13).  After a four-and-a-half-year battle against cancer, she died Tuesday morning at 11:17am and was immediately ushered into Heaven.  Please remember Dad in your prayers as he transitions to not having Mom to care for.

I am proud to be her daughter and of the life she lived.  Her funeral will be a celebration of a life lived well for His glory.  She was grace-filled to the end as she walked the path chosen for her and saw her body decay faster than her mind.  I am sad to not be with the family in [the USA] for her funeral, but trust in His provision for my needs in this season of deep sadness.

I am deeply thankful to so many of you who have been lifting up Mom and our family during this long and weary cancer fight.  Thank you for the e-mails so many of you have sent.  I have been unable to respond to them all personally, but I am deeply touched by the outpouring of love for Mom as well as for me as I grieve far away from the family. 
_____________________________________________________________________

Sadly, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer while Mom was still on her deathbed. Mom never knew that before she died. I'm fairly certain the stress of caring for Mom while she herself was a mother of young children was a contributing factor of her own health problems.

Another long season of chemo and not being there for my sister as we were still in Afghanistan. Every time she received a bad white cell count, chemo report, or had a bad scan, it just about "ate me up" inside, knowing that if my sister died I'd be the last woman of my immediate family of 6.

Thankfully, Dear Sister is still alive and doing well after 5 years.

How do I view all of this time-lag in grieving my mom?

My Heavenly Father knew what would happen through the years, and gave me just want I needed at each moment. He knew what I could handle, and gently led me through it all. Even so, at times I've been desperately hungry for mother-love and father-love.

But He has been so faithful to me, bringing people into my life when I least expected it to give me the right words of encouragement and strength to go on.There are numerous examples of when He had someone send me an e-mail, call me, or just in some way communicated His pride of me and love for me as I've walked this journey.   I testify to His faithful, holy, and steadfast love for all those who love Him.

Here's our family purpose statement, one that Dear Husband and I wrote before we ever went to Afghanistan. It has helped me through the many scary times in Afghanistan and the many troubles we've faced together.

FAMILY PURPOSE STATEMENT:
Our Purpose is to live by simple trust and confidence in Him, unflinching, unawed and undismayed by the troubles we may face, holding staunchly to our calling and enduring steadfastly with our gaze fixed on Him.

Mom's Hands

Her Hands

I tried desperately to memorize the feel of her soft hands as I held them for the very last time.

They had been so gentle with me my whole life. Her hands were handsome, not beautiful the way the world calls beauty. They were especially handsome when she put nail polish on – she had strong hands and fingers, worn, muscular, feminine.

I always loved the look of her gigantic diamond ring on them – her fingers wore them well. She worked hard— harder than any woman I have ever known. She never frittered away time – her hands were busy, knitting a baby blanket, crocheting roses on to a wedding blanket, writing a will, typing an article, cooking, baking, cleaning. Her hands drove me to countless basketball and volleyball games, spending time with me in the car.

She had long before, the first time we left home for Afghanistan, given me permission to never return and see her again. She had released me from the normal familial obligation to care for her in her old age, and then when she got sick with cancer, she released me from caring for her to her death.

She knew my place was next to my husband, and we had been called to Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban. She let me, her 4th baby, take my first baby away from her to that war zone. She never whimpered or complained, but gave me her blessing.

She wrote to me in January of 2006, and asked if I could come home...now would be the last time to see her before she died. She often told me not to bother about coming home for her funeral. So I traveled half way around the world to spend my last few precious days with her.

I held her hands, and tried to memorize them with my eyes and fingers...It wasn’t enough time.

I finally had to tear myself away – the children and dear husband needed me. We had to go back. In her bedroom doorway, I couldn't help not turning around one last time to my mom on earth.

As she lay on her bed, too weak to get up, a tear ran down the side of her head as she said “I love you one last time” with her eyes. I was only 36, she was only 65, but in a few weeks, she’d be dead, and I would be in Afghanistan. It's my last glimpse of mom which stays in my memory.

I miss her hands.

Mine are getting like hers – as I age, I see the veins and the spots. I want mine to age so they look like hers. I miss her so. Maybe if my hands look a little more like hers, I’ll feel her closer to me.

I miss her.