A Mother's Love

It was written that he was destined for greater things in life. But a mother’s love knows no boundary when she knows that her child is going to fall prey to the hands of a few fanatics. Would it be called jihad if these fanatics would put her son to death? How could she allow this to happen? That couldn’t be the will of God? As a mother, she had to protect her son from all harm.

And so one fine day, she left with the 11-year old child in the dead of the night without informing her husband who was fast asleep.

For days, they traveled across the harsh lands occasionally stopping at small villages to spend the night and to feed themselves. The boy was curious why his mother was taking him away from his school, his friends, his people and most of all, his father.

One fine day, they landed in a relatively unknown town and decide to settle there. She took up small tasks to make a living in the neighbourhood so that she could feed her son and herself. But since moving into the small house, the boy had confined himself to the house. The house and his mother were the world to him. He wouldn’t venture out. He didn’t want to. He wanted to obey his mother who feared the worst for him in the relatively unknown outside universe.

Time passed and days turned into weeks and yet the boy stayed within the confines of his house. This place was his only solace. His mother was his only world. But the isolation was taking a toll on his health. He had become a recluse spending most of his time in deep thoughts as if he was meditating. His mother started to worry about him. Often she asked herself if as a mother she wasn’t overstepping her line. What she was doing, was it right and good for her son?

She loved her son and wanted him to be safe and happy. And then one fine day as if reading her thoughts, he looked at her and asked if a bird is ever happy in a locked cage that protects it from its predators. It might be a jungle out there but there is still freedom for the bird to sing the last song of God’s love.

And the journey began that very day back to their home town to the land where his destiny lay. The mother gently and lovingly leading her son with a happy heart. He had to live his life the way he wants for that was what was written for him even before he was born… She was his mother and he was the world…