War

War... My generation knows what war means... For us who remember the fear... the dark... After you experience the war, world is never the same...

Ahmad, can you remember? It was last year that we shared our memories of war... yours from Baghdad and mine from Tehran... and I told you I will never forget your sister's birthday... Happy birthday Asma'!

I was very young at the time of the first attack... I remember that I didn't know what it means, but soon I learned. For us, war was long lines. Lines for chicken, lines for soap, lines for bread, lines for everything. I remember swapping our place in the line with my mother and my brother to be able to get a piece of frozen meat. Starting from 4 in the morning, and by 3 in the afternoon, it would become a happy ending story.

Just same as you...

But it was not all... Soon we learned about the fear... Soon we learned about air attacks... I was 8 when I saw many many dead bodies soaked in blood. Every one was in such a shock that couldn't think of me... I still remember that bloody night when I was in my night gown, with a scarf, in the streets, crying and looking at the mess... The ambulances, the fire machines trying to extinguish the fire, and the government's motorists that arrived before anyone else shouting "War, war, till the victory", and how I hated them...

You told me as a young boy you were excited, you were mesmerized by the concept of "victory"... And when on TV they showed Iranian soldiers dead on ground, you felt proud! and your grandmother cried... and you asked her why she is crying... and she had replied "you don't understand, they are sons to mothers, husbands to wives, lovers to beloveds..."

I was 8... and I realized I have a monster in me! Because every time we saw a plane above our head, I was praying that the pilot doesn't press the key till the plane passed over us. I knew I am praying other people's death. And I felt ashamed...

Your mother used to hold all of you tight to her, hiding you under the staircase... She used to cry and pray and press you all to her body...

It was not all of it... Ameh Joun's son went to the frontiers... He was missing... Ameh Joun was crying day and night. She was clung to the radio, going to a place I don't know where, to track down her son... But she got no news... Whenever there was a new list of "Shahids" or new bodies arrival, her attacks would start... In the fear of finding her son among them, she would swell... Her body swelled like a balloon... And she was shivering... And they had to take her to hospital... She was living on injections... She wanted to believe that he is a war prisoner... And still she does... Even after all the prisoners of war were exchanged... She cannot believe...

You told me that you lost your uncle in the war... He was to get married...

It was not all of it... My brother's friend died in an air attack... That day he came back from school, went to our room (we used to share a room) and closed the door... I was full of fear because I felt death on my throat...

And still these are nothing compared to what people living at the border experienced...

You told me that on TV they used to advertise that this is the second "Qadesiah" and you are going to make "Ajams" Muslim again... We were told the opposite...

Ahmad, please stop making stories for proving god's existence... For me it was solved very easily... I was thirteen, and in our school they taught us a prayer that should have been read every week. In this prayer you ask all the important people in Shia religion to ask god to make your prayer, your wish granted. I prayed it whole heartedly, and I cried it out so sincerely, for forty weeks, and my prayer was the end of war. The war didn't stop, but all the con was clear to me... If there existed a god, how could he not make my wish granted? Forget about my wish, how could he let so many people suffer?

Today, when I see here, in the states, the buses "kneel" and open a ramp for people on wheelchairs, when I see the special place in the bus for fixing a wheelchair, when in every building I see toilets specially designed for handicapped people, when I see the water fountains at the height of a wheelchair, when I see parking places designed for handicapped people, I can't help feeling devastated for each and every person in Iran or Iraq who has lost his health in the war. For every one who has become handicapped because of the war... regardless of his belief at the time of war, regardless of his belief at the moment...

Yes Ahmad! Another year has passed... But year after year we realize again... that after war the world is never the same...