It’s dusk, the snow is about to start any moment, and I’m driving down Iowa Street, one of the main drags in my town, on our way to Target to buy something for dinner and a DVD of the Simpson movie. It’s been a good day, considering the holidays’ pressure that still lingers behind me, my husband sick at home across town, and the tricky weather ahead. At least, it seemed like a good day until NPR began telling us of a woman who runs a website to match up people with their missing gloves. “Why in the world are they reporting on this when Benazir Bhutto was just killed?” my oldest son, Daniel, yells out.
I almost stop short. For years, I’ve followed her story, mesmerized by her daring, intelligence, and leadership. The first woman to serve as prime minister of a Muslim country, Bhutto, and 20 others – as most of you know by now – were killed at a political rally by an assassin who blew himself up afterwards. Born into a wealthy family, and educated at Harvard, and
Returning to
“We can expect 3-5 inches of fresh snow tonight, and a 50-50 chance of more snow tomorrow,” the news announcer says with just enough cheer. I aim the car toward the Target parking lot, feeling shaken by how, when she stuck her neck out for her beliefs, someone slit it. I forget to look for a parking space for a few moments.
There are news stories of tragedies far from here all the time. Maybe because I tend to hear most of my news on the radio instead of having repeated images imprinted into my memory, I often find it easy to just feel momentarily sad, and then get occupied with other things. But there are some stories, like this one, that break through the numbness and resistance born of being safely here, where I can wander store aisles without fearing for my life or buy my kids sweat shirts without fearing for theirs. Minutes after heading the top-of-the-hour news, headlined with the sounds of
Yet my mind is on Bhutto, who I believed would win election and start the slow process of releasing the fascist steam from Pakistani politics. Maybe, and quite obviously, this was a naïve belief. At this moment, many time zones from where we’re expecting freezing drizzle before the snow, thousands of people face far more than my dashed hopes. I circle through the bread aisle twice without remembering what I’m here for, and try to wrap my mind around the grief and loss, the great gulf of fear just split wider, the unbearable pain for so many in Pakistan. I wish for comfort and peace in a country that hasn’t seen much of either in so long and now faces a future where both will be as rare as a brave woman who walked right into the fire, refusing to be silenced or hidden.
I push my cart toward the register and find no line to wait in, only a simple prayer: Benazir Bhutto, rest in peace.
3 comments:
Thank you for this acknowledgment. In the days since the untimely and violent death of Benazir Bhutto I have found myself distracted with despair at any given moment in time. Mrs. Bhutto was a woman I've long regarded as a visionary leader; a noble and valiant woman for any time, but especially during her time and place. With her recent return to Pakistan I felt both hope and fear: hope for a Pakistan calmed under her leadership and fear that she would not survive the election. When I heard the news of her assassination I felt shock and a deep sadness with smatterings of anger—not at those who killed her, but for the absence of what might have been Last night as Kelley Hunt reprised some protest songs from the 1960’s Benazir Bhutto came to my mind. Over the past few days I’ve thought of Mrs. Bhutto often and with her thoughts of MLK, RFK, Gandhi, Lennon, and others who were devoted to peace with their very breaths. Now I will wonder how Pakistan could have been different had she been elected just as I sometimes wonder how the Civil Rights movement, American culture or Vietnam might have been different. Yet here is no sense in wondering as that energy need be directed to the matters at hand now in our world….but in sullen moments such as those brought on by this sort of news, it’s hard not to wonder. May flights of angels sing thee softly to thy rest Mrs. Bhutto. Your people and the world will miss you.
What a beautiful tribute to a brave soul and a deep reminder for us all to be mindful of the world around us and to appreciate those who have worked so hard to better it.
KJ
Thanks so much for your visionary comments, Mizb53 and KJ. Lately, there have been editorials coming out that blasted her for her privilege, the less-than-total competency of her government and more, but none of it takes away from the reality that she was willing to put herself on the line for what she believed in.
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